Alton Towers, Sir Francis Bacon and the Rosicrucians

Please note that I do contribute to other threads when I have information that I think is worth sharing. That included the Covid thread. I have also posted some of my research from this thread on other threads where I thought it would help the discussion.

It is well noted, MJF, no worries there.

I'm also a little humbled at the prolific research you do.

It is interesting that you mention the possibility of creating a table summarising the findings on this thread. If you check earlier on the thread, one Forum member suggested creating a computerised table to establish all the links arising from it. Perhaps if that member is still reading the thread, he could have a stab at trying to do this now, with a brief summary of the findings. It would be an interesting project.

Yes, that might be the way to go about it, which may also produce some questions to ask, as you further said. Others may have thoughts.
Sometimes a member's comments on my articles leads to another line of research. This is the case with your comments on IG Farben and mine in response about the company's links to the Bush family.

Quite right, osit, as often in threads peeps read something that brings up another line of questions and research - ties to something else. One never knows where things will fit together, too. Think of all the things the C's have said in an offhand way, only to key into something that comes up further along.

As to asking the C's more detailed questions that is something I am happy for those who participate in the live sessions with the C's to do. If I was asking for more information from them, I might be tempted, inter alia, to ask about that strange painting of John Dee by the artist Henry Glindoni that has a hidden image of him standing surrounded by a circle of skulls, which was painted over and only revealed in modern times by X-rays. There also seems to be an image of a crone in the foreground (an image the C's adopted themselves when appearing to Laura's children early on in the Cassiopaean project - which in turn is an image which has a link to the Triple-goddess). Apart from finding out the reasons for the artist painting this imagery in the first place and then painting over it, I would enquire whether the hidden imagery was in any way connected to the infamous 13 crystal skulls of Native American folklore, including the Mitchell-Hedges Skull.

Remember this now from back in the thread, so perhaps that can be pulled out into a table or its own thread - and tease it to see if it can be answered, and if not, sort out a good question or two and see where it goes?

When it comes to John Dee, Alan Green brings his work up a fair bit, as you probably know.

Don't be detracted, think people would like to see things continue in a way that, again, encourages participation and findings in a methodical way.
 
the Israeli Mossad, the FBI and national security (cointelpro) and above 4d SAS determined to follow the traces of Casiopea's work and not having the necessary FRV adjustments believe they have a chance but (they see what they want to see, they don't What is it)It is similar to the story of Aladdin and the magic lamp.
The magician Shafar through his magic knows that only Aladdin can remove the lamp would be in vain to hire other looters or profaners then we have the Mossad of Israel, the FBI and national security determined to follow the traces of the looter.

The comparison to Aladdin is a good catch. As to Mossad, the FBI etc., you can add the British Secret Intelligence Service (MI6) who reputedly keep a close eye on Rennes-le-Chateau. According to one source I have quoted on this thread, they even have a room dedicated to the subject. Again, this suggests they know the Grail is somewhere in this area but they can't discover exactly where. As the C's said, Hitler tried hardest to locate it - probably through Otto Rahn, an SS officer, who was a devotee of Wolfram Von Eschenbach's Parzival. Even as the allies were invading France on D-Day (6 June 1944), SS troops were carrying out digs in the area (See attached article).​
 

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It is well noted, MJF, no worries there.

I'm also a little humbled at the prolific research you do.



Yes, that might be the way to go about it, which may also produce some questions to ask, as you further said. Others may have thoughts.


Quite right, osit, as often in threads peeps read something that brings up another line of questions and research - ties to something else. One never knows where things will fit together, too. Think of all the things the C's have said in an offhand way, only to key into something that comes up further along.



Remember this now from back in the thread, so perhaps that can be pulled out into a table or its own thread - and tease it to see if it can be answered, and if not, sort out a good question or two and see where it goes?

When it comes to John Dee, Alan Green brings his work up a fair bit, as you probably know.

Don't be detracted, think people would like to see things continue in a way that, again, encourages participation and findings in a methodical way.
You make a lot of good points here. I would be happy to deal with Forum moderators if they feel, some of the work can be split out on to different threads. Meanwhile, I am working on part 2 of the Origins of the Freemasons and a piece on the Skull & Bones Society at the moment. I hope they will be of interest to people.
 
The Roots of Freemasonry Part 2

In the first part of this article, we looked at the Druids and how their practices, beliefs and degree-based system may have formed the underpinnings of Scottish Freemasonry. We then looked at the Collegio system and organisational structure of the Roman Stonemasons’ guilds, which seems to have mirrored in many ways the later British Freemasonic lodge system and officer hierarchy. Before moving on to look at the way the Roman Collegio system may have influenced Britain, I would like briefly to examine another possible influence on both the Roman Collegia and Freemasonry, one that has a Middle East basis.​

The Dionysian Artificers of Tyre

The Fraternity of the Dionysian Artificers are said to have been a Tyrian (i.e., based on the City of Tyre) and Phoenician sect of builders who pre-dated the Freemasons but shared many of their characteristics. The Canadian Masonic Historian, Manly Palmer Hall (who wrote the influential work The Secret Teaching of All Ages in 1928), said of them that they “constituted an ancient secret society, its principles and doctrines [being] much like the modern Freemasonic order … they possessed a secret language and a system of marking their stones.” He also claims they called themselves the ‘Sons of Solomon’ and taught a moral code based on the tools of the building trade.

This last reference is an important point to keep in mind, particularly when we come to look below at the various French medieval stonemasons’ or craftsmen guilds (one of which was called ‘The Children of Solomon’), which were supported by both the Knights Templar and their sister monastic order the Cistercians.

King Solomon remains regarded as the theoretical, inaugural Most Excellent Grand Master of Freemasonry and Masonic lore holds that there is a direct lineage from this legendary Israelite (or Jewish) monarch to Freemasonry today. The first link in this chain is said to be the ancient mystical collective of architects known as the Fraternity of Dionysian Artificers.

According to the Bible, the Dionysian Artificers were supposedly sent by Hiram, King of Tyre, to aid King Solomon in the building of his temple on Mount Moriah in Jerusalem. They already had a reputation for building gleaming temples across the Middle East and would, therefore, have been a welcome addition to Solomon’s workforce. Indeed, the mysterious doomed Hiram Abiff (so important a figure to modern Freemasons, particularly where the Third Degree of Master Mason in the York rite is concerned) may even have been their leader, a pre-Freemasonry equivalent to a Masonic Grand Master.​

Ian Gittins in his book Unlocking the Masonic Code – Secrets of The Solomon Key develops this point when he says that:

The parallel history of Freemasonry claims that after King Solomon’s Temple was completed. The Dionysian Artificers taught new initiates a discipline that combined architectural know-how with the wisdom and morality of Solomon. Over the following centuries they bestowed this practical and spiritual education on new initiates before eventually passing it on to Pythagoras … This knowledge supposedly passed from Pythagorean teachings into the architectural colleges, or collegia formed by the Romans between the 2nd Century BC and the 4th Century AD.”

However, Gittings then dismisses these Masonic claims as ‘absolute gale-force gibberish’, by which the Freemasons have sought to create an unbroken spiritual and physical lineage from King Solomon. However, I think he may be too dismissive. The question we need to ask is whether the various stonemasons guilds or colleges over the centuries could have been used as a means of transmitting esoteric knowledge (such a sacred geometry) from generation to generation until finally it has ended up in the hands of the modern-day Freemasons. To lend some support to this claim, I would turn to the Cassiopaeans:​

Q: (L) Do the Rosicrucians have writings in their keeping that they, themselves, do not understand?

A: Yes. So do the Masons.


Hence, from this we see that the Freemasons would appear to be a repository of certain esoteric knowledge, which they do not understand. Perhaps Laurence Gardner may be at least partially correct in his assertion that the secrets of Freemasonry are to some extent tied up with Ormus or monoatomic gold (N.B. a form of gold with anti-gravity properties), a secret the Egyptian Pharaohs of the 18th Dynasty, Abraham/Moses and the Knights Templar would seem to have possessed.

The other things we should bear in mind here is that according to Laura and the C’s there never was any Israelite king called Solomon. He is a fiction based it would seem on an earlier Pharaoh of Egypt, who the C’s confirmed was Narmer, the first king of Egypt who unified the country at the beginning of the First Dynastic Period (c. 3150 - 2613 BC). The date commonly given for the beginning of Narmer's reign is c. 3100 BC:​

Q: Was the Temple on Crete at Knossos, was it really a necropolis as Wunderlich suggests?
A: 5th density waiting room. […]
Q: Was this temple the source of the legends of the Temple of Solomon?
A: Yes.
Q: Was Solomon also King Menes of Minos of Crete?
A: No.
Q: Was Solomon a king of Egypt?
A: Yes.

Q: Which king of Egypt was the equivalent of Solomon?
A: Narmer.

Q: Was Daedalus the "architect" who became known as Hiram Abif?
A: Close.


The question we might then ask is whether the Dionysian Artificers of Tyre played any part in the Building of the Temple at Knossos? Could the Dionysian Artificers of Tyre have had any connection with the Nephilim giants who were involved with the building of the original City of Baalbek, with its famous cyclopean stones (ref. the Trilithon)? See: The Forgotten Stones of Baalbek, Lebanon | Ancient Origins (ancient-origins.net)

The C’s told us that Baalbek was built by the Sumerians and a group called the Antereans (or Antareans suggesting a link with the star system Antares), who seem to have been advanced humanoid aliens:​

Q: Who built the city of Baalbek?

A:
Antereans and early Sumerians. We meant Atlanteans. {Who are the Antereans?}

Q: What is the reason for the enormous proportions of this building?

A: Giants.

Q: Who were the giants?

A: Genetic effort to recreate Nephalim.


[….]

Q: What technical means did they use to cut the stones and transport them?

A: Sound wave focusing.
[MJF: the same method used in the building of the Great Pyramid at Giza and at Stonehenge.]

Q: What happened to interrupt or halt the building of this city?

A: Venus first appearance and pass.

Q: What year was this project brought to a halt?

A: 3218 B.C.

You will note that the date of 3218 BC puts it in the ballpark of Pharaoh Narmer. Hence, a group of skilled builders like the Dionysian Artificers of Tyre (which is not geographically far from Baalbek) could feasibly have been involved with the building of the Temple at Knossos. In doing so, they could have used knowledge they inherited from the Antareans. As to alien influence on Narmer this is borne out by what the C’s have said about the famous Biblical Queen of Sheba and her relationship to Solomon (Narmer):​

Q: Who was the Queen of Sheba?

A: Fictional.

Q: Did a great queen come to visit King Solomon?

A: Alien influence.

On this basis, there would seem to have been an interaction between Solomon/Narmer and aliens. This interaction may have given rise to the worship of the ancient Egyptian god Ptah (see my earlier posts), the Egyptian creator god who was often depicted in the guise of a man with green skin, contained in a shroud sticking to the skin, wearing the divine beard, and holding a sceptre combining three powerful symbols of ancient Egyptian religion. In the Old Kingdom, the high priests of Ptah were particularly sought after and worked in concert with the vizier, filling the role of chief architects and master craftsmen. There was an eccentric 20th Century British alternative historian called William Comyns Beaumont who through his book Britain the Key to World History would seem to have influenced Immanuel Velikovsky (the author of Worlds in Collision and someone whose work has been discussed in the transcripts), who took his ideas to heart. Beaumont made a connection between what he called the pre-historic Freemasons and the Cabiri (see my previous posts for more on the Cabiri gods and the possibility they were grey aliens):​

Solomon built up his wealth and made the Israelites in his age the dominating people by his knowledge of “magic,” an art described by Josephus in these words, “God also enabled him to learn that skill which expels demons, which is a skill useful and sanative to man.” Incidentally, Solomon was a Grand Master of prehistoric Freemasonry a very ancient fraternity earlier known as the Cabiri gods — its origin often attributed to him, and some of the mystic ceremonies used in the Masonic cult are probably derived from his epoch, yet how many present-day Masons can understand the inner meaning of the two hollow pillars Joachin. and Boaz, which they are so fond of symbolising?

Hence, there would seem to have been some interaction with aliens, perhaps the Greys in disguise as the Cabiri gods (recall the image of the grey alien on the Temple wall at Abydos and the depictions of Ptah from my earlier posts), and the Egyptians around 3,100 BC, on the basis of Narmer having been the real King Solomon. However, the C’s said the ultimate roots of the Freemasons lay with the Osirians and this link dates to 5,633 BC, which leaves a gap of more than 2,500 years to fill. It is important to stress here that the civilisation we know today as Ancient Egypt may not have existed in 5,633 BC. That being said, the C’s did once say the following:

A: If you were living in the desert, or jungle, about 7,000 years ago, as you measure time, would you not be impressed if these Reptoid "dudes" came down from the heavens in silvery objects and demonstrated techno-wonders from thousands of years in the future, and taught you calculus, geometry and astrophysics to boot?!?

Q: Is that, in fact, what happened?

A: Yup.


I would suggest their reference to “jungle” may relate to the Mayans of central America or the Olmecs, whose civilisation pre-dated that of the Mayans. The reference to “desert” may, of course, be to Egypt but then it could also be to Mesopotamia and the Ubaid civilisation (c. 6500–3700 BC) that predated the later Sumerian civilisation (recall that the Sumerians would be involved in the building of Baalbeck with the Antareans and the Nephilim in 3,218 BC). There is, however, evidence suggestive of an interaction between the Ubaid people and the Reptilians in the form of very strange reptilian looking Ubaid period statuettes (see below). The Ubaid culture was the first agricultural settlers who moved into the region that became Sumer. Ubaid Culture is characterised by large village settlements and the appearance of the first temples in Mesopotamia. The Ubaid civilisation also better fits the 5,000 BC time period the C’s spoke of above.
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Further support may be given to the proposition that it was Mesopotamia rather than Egypt the C’s were referring to by the fact that the C’s confirmed that the Sumerian civilisation was older than that of Ancient Egypt:
Session 30 September 1994:

Q: (L) Which is the older civilization: Sumerian or Egyptian?

A: Sumerian.


Since the Osirians date back to 5,633 BC, a date prior to that mentioned for the interaction of the Reptilians with those who were living in the desert, or jungle, this suggests the Osirians were not based in Egypt at that time. If they were not based in Egypt, where else could they have been based?

One possibility is that they may have been part of the subterranean civilisation of Celts, perhaps part of the Nation of the Third Eye, since the C’s said that they were the inspiration for Masonic lore and the Illuminati too (see Part 1 of the article for more). However, my instinct is that they were not. I would suggest the Osirians may have been based in northern Europe, possibly at Stonehenge in England, since the C’s had said that the Northern Peoples of Europe were responsible for the transmission of learning to the Mediterranean regions. This could mean we are looking at the ancient Druids again as well as the Hyperboreans.

Whatever the truth of the matter, judging from what the C’s have said, it seems that today’s Freemasons, who base a lot of their teachings around the Temple of Solomon (as did Sir Francis Bacon’s Rosicrucians), have got the wrong King Solomon and the wrong temple. However, this in itself need not invalidate their esoteric knowledge and secrets, it just means that it came down a different line or from a different lineage. This knowledge may still have been passed on through mystery schools or colleges of architects and stonemasons as well. Turning back to this theme, I next want to look at Roman Britain and especially to a famous Roman architect who is considered by the Freemasons to be the proto-Freemason of Britain.​

St. Alban the Proto British Mason

According to William Preston, a Romano-British emperor named Carausius revived the principles of Masonry in Britain. Caruasius supported learning, improved the civil arts, and employed the best workmen and artificers from throughout the country. The old Masonic constitutions say that he took on a noble called Albanus (after whom the city of St Albans in Hertfordshire is named today) to provide his hometown of Verulamium (the old Roman name for St Albans) with a wall. Albanus provided not only a wall but a splendid palace for the emperor too. He did such a good job apparently that Carausius made him steward of his household and chief ruler of the realm (remember this is Masonic folklore!). The Masons became Carausius’s favourites, and he was so impressed by their teachings that he made Albanus their Grand Master. Albanus held regular lodges and conventions for the Fraternity and the rituals of Masonry thrived. Carausius also granted them a charter letting them hold a general council, set up their own government and correct errors among themselves. It appears that Albanus assisted at the initiation of many candidates into the mysteries of the Order whilst he was the Grand Master and Freemasonry thrived under his patronage. Preston took the view that Albanus was a celebrated architect, and an encouraging force as regards able workmen.

According to Preston, Albanus came from one of the leading families of Verulamium. As a young man he had travelled to Rome where he served the Emperor Diocletian for seven years. After leaving Rome, he travelled to the town of Chester (in today’s county of Cheshire), which had originally been a Roman garrison town found as a castrum or fort (Chester derives from the plural “castra”) with the name Deva Victrix in 79 AD. There he was baptised as a Christian by Bishop Amphibalus.

The historian the Venerable Bede tells how Albanus died in 303 AD. When the Roman governor was told that Albanus was hiding a Christian in his house, he sent a party of soldiers to apprehend him. It seems that the Christian was none other than Bishop Amphibalus who had baptised Albanus. When the soldiers came, Albanus was dressed in the monastic habit of his guest and offered himself for arrest by the soldiers. He was taken before a magistrate where he spoke in support of his friend and fellow Christian. The judge, however, followed the edict of Diocletian and ordered Albanus to be beheaded for professing the Christian faith. He was subsequently made a saint by the Church and became known in England as St Alban the martyr, Eventually, his hometown was renamed as a memorial to him.​

The refence to St Albans makes me think of the Session dated 28 June 1997:

A: Symbiotic relationship. Was there a military connection?

Q: Oh, you mean the fact that my father was a chemist and was in the Navy? Does this have anything to do with my 12 day disappearance when I was three?

A: Maybe?

Q: Was something done to him when he was in the Navy?

A: Hmmmmmmmmmm? Now connect "Jack” with "Cecil."

Q: Well, Cecil was the fellow who kidnapped me. And, when he was arrested, the Navy came and took him away saying he was "incompetent to stand trial" because he had "escaped from a Navy hospital." And that essentially ended any hope of finding out where I was taken or why. I just don't see. How does this relate to St. Augustine, the Canaries, to Oak Island - all of this? What are we doing here?

A: St. Albans.

Q: And there is more! My God! We aren't happy with Mary Magdalene and St. Augustine, and St. Anthony! Now we also have St. Albans! Of course, I know that it is the place where there was a battle and one of the Percy's was killed there. It was also called Verulamian in the Celtic days, and was Lord Verulam and some suspect that he was the son of Elizabeth I. But there are only so many hours in the day, guys! I need some help here! I was hoping that I would be getting some help with the research...

A: Remain open to all and look for others. But suggest you "pick their brains" more thoroughly before you offer up your own information, thus allowing for less troublesome emotionally oriented rapids crossing. Enough until next time.


On the surface, the reference to St Albans would certainly seem to be pointing Laura towards Sir Francis Bacon who was ennobled as the 1st Viscount St Alban but was also known as Lord Verulam. However, as I showed in my article The Strange Case of Richard Hesketh, the C’s can often provide clues that have multiple meanings. In The Strange Case of Richard Hesketh, I showed that the references to “Jack” (an alternative name for John in the English speaking world – think of President John F Kennedy who was know by family and close friends as Jack) could have been to Doctor John Dee and “Cecil” could have been to William Cecil (Lord Burghley). the right-hand man of Queen Elizabeth I, who were both linked to the Richard Hesketh Plot. This was a Catholic plot (possibly Jesuit inspired) that drew in Ferdinando Stanley, the Earl of Derby otherwise known as Lord Strange. Hesketh, the unwitting messenger, would be caught and then tried and executed in St Albans for his part in the plot. Not long after Ferdinando Stanley would die in mysterious circumstances, seemingly from poisoning.

However, the C’s link St Albans to St. Augustine, the Canaries and Oak Island. What might these four places have in common? As I pointed out in the Hesketh article, the reference to St Augustine may provide us with a link to the Augustinian Cannons in 12th century Jerusalem who may have established the Order or Priory of Sion (see my earlier article The Augustinian Canons of Notre Dame de Sion). Originally, the Order of Sion had a close relationship to the Knights Templar (who may have played a role in transmitting Masonic secrets and rituals to modern Freemasonry) but this relationship seemed to break down after the fall of Jerusalem, the break down perhaps forming the backcloth to the subsequent violent encounter between English forces and French forces at Gisors in Normandy in 1188, which is remembered in history as the ‘Cutting of the Elm’ incident. Was the battle really a clash between English forces who supported the Knights Templar (including Prince or King Richard the Lionheart - depending on whether he was the King at the time – an ardent supporter of the Templars) and the French forces who may have supported the Order or Priory of Sion. Pierre Plantard may have made up most of what is claimed in The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail, but he could have been right about the split between the Templars and the Priory of Sion. If so, was it provoked by the fact that the Templars had custody of the Holy Grail and would not relinquish it to the Priory? If that was the case, could the Priory of Sion have been a front for the Rosicrucians, who would take their revenge on the Templars in 1307 through another French King called Phillip? Recall that the C’s said in the session dated 21 December 1996:​

A: Rosicrucians move as a "thief in the night."

Q: (L) But, as I understand it, the Rosicrucians did not come into being until after the end of the Templars...

A: No.

Q: (L) Do you mean that the information that came out, that pamphlet about "Christian Rosenkreutz," that is a purported fable, might be correct?

A: Yes.

Q: (L) Well, goodness sake! The Rosicrucians advertise in magazines!!! Is this worldwide organization that promotes itself so blatantly...

A: Well, the "world-wide" order is not all inclusive.

Q: (L) Is there an inner circle of this order that is unknown?

A: Yes.

Q: (L) Are the Rosicrucians connected to the Masons?

A: In a roundabout away.

Q: (L) Are the Illuminati connected to the Rosicrucians in any way?

A: Same.
[MJF: As they would be when we learn from the C’s elsewhere that the Illuminati are the upper echelons of Freemasonry.]

Hence, we see that the Roscirucians were long in existence before the publication of the Rosicrucian Manifestos in the early 17th Century and what was said in the pamphlet about Christian Rosenkreutz may well be true. They no doubt have hidden behind all kinds of front organisations over the ages, so why not the Order or Priory of Sion. In addition, it is curious that the C’s use the expression “thief in the night” since that is an expression normally attributed to Christ.​

Two passages of the New Testament use the wording “a thief in the night”: Matthew 24:43, “Understand this: If the owner of the house had known at what time of night the thief was coming, he would have kept watch and would not have let his house be broken into,” and 1 Thessalonians 5:2, “You know very well that the day of the Lord will come like a thief in the night.

St. Paul uses the analogy of a “thief in the night” because he wants to emphasize how disorienting Jesus’ return will be for those who are “asleep” or are not Christ-followers. Thus, the C’s would seem to be conveying a sense of complete surprise or wrong footing of the Templars. And, of course, the Roman Catholic Church was involved in the suppression of the Templars and their interrogation over charges of heresy. In a sense, it was truly “the day of the lord” (judgement day) for the Templars. However, I would question whether the Templars were completely unaware of what was coming on Friday 13th, 1307. Many commentators take the view that they had been tipped off, allowing many knights in France to escape arrest. Indeed, some seem to have made their way to Scotland and may have established a new Templar operation there that would eventually morph into Freemasonry.

If the Order of Sion was still an operative part of the Church in 1307, then it could well have played a role behind the scenes in the arrest and interrogation of the Templars (as they say - revenge is sweet). Curiously, I have read that when the religious order that had been the Order of Sion became defunct, many of its remaining properties were handed over to the newly formed Society of Jesus (otherwise known as the Jesuits) who in some ways would become a semi-military/religious order replacing the Templars.

Given that the C’s have said that the Canary Islands (Page 33) may have some connection to Freemasonry and to the mystery of Oak Island, and they have implied that Sir Francis Bacon, Viscount St Alban, also had some link to the burial of the TDARM on Oak Island, then we may see a fresh connection between St. Augustine, the Canaries, Oak Island and St Albans, which links the Rosicrucians with the Templars and their successors, the Freemasons. This link may be further strengthened if the Knights Templar (or their sister order The Knights of Christ) did land on Oak Island in the past, as claimed by the likes of author Andrew Sinclair, which the recent discovery of a Templar style lead cross on the island may indicate as having being true. Now that we know that the town of St Albans (through St. Alban the Martyr and proto-Freemason) is also linked with Freemasonry, we may have found another possible connection to this passage in the transcripts. Let us also not forget the 2008 story that the investigative writer Andrew Gough told of a Rosicrucian-led recovery mission to Oak Island that seemed to find a relic of great interest which appeared to have been buried there in the late 16th Century by a group of 12 men who in a ship called the Pura Vida had accompanied something they referred to as the ‘Beloved’ on their voyage to Oak Island. If this recovery mission was true, it provides yet another connection between the Rosicrucians and Oak Island.​

Early English Freemasonry

Earlier in the Session dated 28 June 1997, the C’s had discussed one of Laura’s ancestors who had emigrated to America from York in England in the mid-17th Century:​

Q: Okay. If the line of the Percys' comes through my mother, what are we looking for through the Knights? What came together here in my parents? It is beginning to look like something was 'engineered' for some definite purpose?

A: Yes. And we suggest you research this!

Q: I was only able to take the Knight line back to Abel Knight who came to America from York, in the mid 1600’s. Is there some connection in York?

A: Further research is needed, and it is easier than you think.


Laura has speculated whether the name “Knight” may suggest a connection to the English Knights Templar some of whom after the order was suppressed became laicised, married and had families. It is interesting that Laura’s English ancestor should have left for America from York, as that city has a special link with English Freemasonry as we will see – it even lends its name to the York rite. Could her ancestor have been a stonemason or Freemason perhaps?

Returning to early British Freemasonry, after the Romans finally pulled out of Britain in the early 5th Century, it appears according to Preston that Masonry was totally neglected because of the widespread disruption caused by the frequent raids of the Picts and the Scots, which would lead the southern British to call in the help of the Saxons to repel these northern invaders. However, as the Saxons gained increasing power in Britain, the native Britons and their knowledge of Masonry sank into obscurity. Preston even claims that the Saxons destroyed what remained of the ancient Masonic learning. It was not until Christian missionaries from Wales and Ireland converted some of the Picts and Scots to Christianity that the attacks diminished and Masonic lodges could begin to meet again.

Preston claims that Masonry continued to decline until A.D. 597, when the Roman monk St Augustine (who Preston referred to as “Austin” – a common English abbreviation of the name Augustine) came to southern England with forty monks skilled in the science of Masonry. St. Augustine would become the first Archbishop of Canterbury and would enjoy great success in converting the kings of southern England to Christianity. Masonry flourished under St Augustine’s patronage and he would popularise the Gothic style of building introduced by foreign Masons at this time. St Augustine encouraged architecture and headed the Fraternity, which began the building of cathedrals and abbeys at Canterbury, Rochester, St Paul’s London and St Peter’s Westminster and many other places. He also supervised the building of several palaces and castles. Because he encouraged such building works, the number of masons in England increased considerably.

Over the succeeding centuries Masonry continued to flourish under the patronage of kings and religious figures such as St Swithin and was given a particular boost by the accession of the Saxon King Alfred in 872 A.D. Preston says that he was a zealous protector of Masonry. We should recall though that much of Alfred’s kingdom lay in ruins and desolation as a result of the ravages of the Danes. Many of his cities, castles, palaces and monasteries had been ruined or destroyed. When Alfred died in 900 A.D., his son Edward took the throne and during his reign the Masons continued to hold lodge meetings and also enjoyed the patronage of Edward’s brother and brother-in-law, Prince Ethelward and Ethred respectively. Whilst King Alfred founded the great University of Oxford, it would be Prince Ethelward who would found the University of Cambridge.

In 924 A.D. when King Edward died, he was succeeded by his son Athelstane whose brother, Prince Edwin, became the new patron of the Masons. Of great future importance, it was at this time that Athelstane sold the Masons a Royal Charter, which gave them the right to meet every year at York and to rule themselves under a Royal Grand Master. Thus, the first Grand Lodge of England was formed at York in 926 A.D. Prince Edwin presided over the meeting and many old Masonic writings in Greek, Latin, and other languages such as French were studied, and their contents incorporated into the constitutions and charges of the English Masonic lodges.

Preston went on to quote from a copy of a paper which he claimed had once been part of the collection of Elias Ashmole (who is often held out to be the first Englishman initiated into modern Freemasonry), which Preston says was destroyed towards the end of the English Civil War. In the document it is claimed that King Athelstane encouraged many masons from France, who were appointed overseers and brought with them charges and regulations of the French lodges which had been preserved from Roman times. This is an important point to make since it may indicate how ancient esoteric influences could have been introduced into England through French masons. However, it may in fact be later medieval French masons, particularly those who belonged to guilds such as the Children of Solomon, that would have a greater influence on Freemasonry. Nevertheless, Preston claims that it was from this era that we can date the re-establishment of free masonry in England. Moreover, we see the first Grand Lodge of Masons being established at York, which would to continue view itself as the mother lodge of all England. The York Grand Lodge’s ancient role and status would subsequently lead to great infighting within the modern Masonic movement when the new Grand Lodge of England was established in 1717 in London, since the London based Freemasons (who were primarily businessmen and aristocrats, as well as being purely speculative Masons) failed to show much sensitivity towards the York Grand Lodge who had a prior and far more ancient claim to be the Grand or Master Lodge of England. Could we be witnessing by this action the Illuminati’s takeover of what had formerly been operative Freemasonry in England? Certainly though, Preston in his history of the Craft brought out the importance of the Grand Lodge of York and its claim to have made a better job of preserving the ancient traditions of Freemasonry than the Grand Lodge in London managed to do.

When Prince Edwin died, King Athelstane personally took over the direction of the lodges and continued to support Masonry until he died. Upon his death, the Masons dispersed and the lodges remained in an unsettled state till the accession of King Edgar who then brought the Fraternity together under the mastership of St. Dunstan, although they were not particularly encouraged. Although Preston does not mention it, St Dunstan, who acted virtually as a prime minister under Edgar, was at one time the Abbot of Glastonbury Abbey. As a young monk, Dunstan had become famous as a musician, an illuminator and a metalworker or silversmith making church plate. It is this last function that is interesting, since those with good memories may recall that St. Dunstan is thought to have been an active alchemist. Indeed, it was supposedly at the ruins of Glastonbury Abbey that Edward Kelley, John Dee’s scryer or trance medium who was also an active alchemist, found the strange red powder to which he attributed alchemical powers. About a year after entering into Dee's service, Kelley appeared with an alchemical book (The Book of Dunstan) and a quantity of a red powder which, Kelley claimed, he and a certain John Blokley had been led to by a "spiritual creature” at Northwick Hill. Accounts of Kelley's finding the book and the powder in the ruins of Glastonbury Abbey were first published by Elias Ashmole but are contradicted by Dee's diaries. With the powder (whose secret was presumably hidden in the book) Kelley believed he could prepare a red "tincture" which would allow him to transmute base metals into gold. He reportedly demonstrated its power a few times over the years, including in Bohemia (today the Czech Republic) where he and Dee resided for many years. Whilst in Prague, Kelley would reconvert to Catholicism under the influence of the city’s Jesuit fathers and some think he may have been implicated in the Hesketh plot, as Hesketh had commenced his journey to England, with the incriminating letter he was carrying, from Prague.

Masonry declined with King Edgar’s death and was only revived in 1041 because of the interest King Edward the Confessor showed in Masonry. He appointed Leofric, the Earl of Coventry, who was an accomplished architect, as Superintendent of Masons.​

The Norman Period and the Knights Templar

After the Norman Conquest in 1066, the Norman kings of England, starting with William the Conqueror himself, took a keen interest in the Masonic Fraternity. Indeed, King Henry I, who came to the throne in 1100, would grant a Charter of Liberties to the Masons and encouraged the lodges to assemble.

When King Henry II came to the throne in 1154, he appointed Andrȇ de Montbard, the Grand Master of the Knights Templar, to act as Superintendent of the Masons. He would be the first of a succession of Templar Superintendents that would see the Masons employed to build a Temple for the Order in Fleet Street, which still stands today. This church was completed under Grand Master Gèrard de Ridefort the Superintendent in 1185. A round church based on the circular church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem, it was consecrated by the Patriarch of Jerusalem. Masonry continued under the patronage of the Knights Templar until 1199 when King John (Richard the Lionheart’s brother and successor) removed Gilbert Erail, the last Templar Grand Superintendent, and replaced him with Peter de Colechurch who was designated as Grand Master of Masons. This action may signify the fact that King John did not have as good a relationship with the Knights Templar as that which his father Henry II and his brother Richard I had enjoyed. Indeed, it is said that King John only signed the Barons’ Magna Carta (Great Charter) at Runnymede in 1215 under pressure from the Knights Templar’s English Grand Master. Given what we have learned about the Templars and their esoteric secrets, it is intriguing that they should have been put in charge of the Masons of England for 45 years (see below though for the Templars’ connections to the Craftmasons in medieval France which may explain why). However, we must keep in mind that at that time the Masons were all active stone masons whereas today’s Freemasons are nearly all speculative masons, who do not participate in physical building activities or building design work of any nature (there are no doubt builders and architects within the ranks of modern Freemasonry but their connection to such activities is probably not the reason why they became Freemasons).

However, at this point I wish to leave Preston’s history of Masonry in England to look at parallel developments of Freemasonry in France, where the Knights Templar would play a prominent part in the construction of many of the early medieval Gothic cathedrals.​

The Masonic Guilds of France and the Rise of the Gothic

Tim Wallace-Murphy and Marilyn Hopkins in their book Rosslyn – Guardians of the Secrets of the Holy Grail tell us that various initiatory orders existed among the craftsmen who built the great cathedrals of Western Europe. In England, these craft guild were known as Craftmasons. In France there were at least three such fraternities: The Children of Father Soubise, The Children of Master Jacques and The Children of Solomon. Their spiritual heirs are known as Les Compagnons des Devoirs du Tour de France. All of them observed a moral tradition of chivalry within their craft and a submission to work that must be done. All ‘shared the same bread’ (an outward sign of community and fraternity) and were men ‘who knew how to use a pair of compasses’, which in masonic terms means they had been granted insight into the secret laws, knowledge and harmony of sacred geometry. Quoting English author Ian Duncan in his book The Cathedrals’ Crusade on the importance of this skill, he said: “It is not uncommon in medieval illumination to find God the Father [the Ancient of Days] represented as the “elegans architectus” holding a large pair of compasses”. In modern masonic terms, he represents the Great Architect of the Universe.

The initiated Masons of the Craft were described as a hierarchy of three ascending degrees: apprentice, companion and attained companion or master. As an outward expression of their divinely inspired duties, these enlightened craftsmen refused to bear arms or build fortresses and prisons. Apprentices learned their trade moving from yard to yard in the course of a ‘tour de France’, receiving instruction from ‘compagnons’. They later underwent initiation by their masters in secret enclaves called ‘cayennes’.

The three fraternities, which later emerged into one single association, had, at first, different duties and they utilised different techniques. The Children of Father Soubise were to be found at the heart of the Benedictine monastic system and mainly built in the Romanesque style. Their signatures or masonic marks differed widely from those of the builders of Gothic, even when their work was contemporary.

1673729364122.png
William Blake’s ‘The Ancient of Days’ originally published as the frontispiece to the 1794 work Europe a Prophecy. The title draws its name from one of God's titles in the Book of Daniel.

The Children of Master Jacques, known also as the ‘Compagnons Passant du Devoir’, were supposedly founded by Master Jacques, the son of Jacquin (Joachim), a master craftsman who, as legend relates, was created master after journeys in Greece, Egypt and Jerusalem (MJF: shades of Christian Rosenkreutz here). The same legends explain that it was he who made the two pillars of the Temple of Solomon that stood guarding the porch of the Temple: Boaz and the one that is actually called Joachim. It is worth pointing out here that these twin pillars are amongst the most prolific symbols and allegorical key figures of modern Freemasonry. Hence, we may be seeing a connection here between this medieval French craft guild and modern Masonic teachings. Wallace-Murphy and Hopkins add that the medieval Children of Master Jacques were the successors to the ancient Celtic (Druid) builders who signed their work with an oakleaf.​

The Children of Solomon

From our perspective though, it is the third brotherhood, the Children of Solomon, that is the most important group to focus on. This fraternity are credited with building Chartres Cathedral (an awe-inspiring cathedral I have visited on a number of occasions) and most of the other ‘Notre Dame’ cathedrals such as Rheims and Amiens. Wallace-Murphy and Hopkins point out that many of the churches and cathedrals they constructed bear their signature of the ‘chrisme à l’epée – a Celtic cross enclosed within a circle (MJF: there are those who claim that the Celtic cross is a symbol inherited from Atlantis). Apart from sharing with the Fraternity of the Dionysian Artificers the connection to Solomon in their name, as Many P Hall states that the former were also called the ‘Sons of Solomon’, what else may these two groups of builders have had in common? Could they have shared access to the same esoteric knowledge perhaps?

In this last regard, we should note that the Children of Solomon were instructed in sacred geometry by Cistercian monks, the order of St Bernard of Clairvaux who had helped to establish the Knights Templar. The Fraternity was named after King Solomon who, according to the Old Testament, commissioned the Temple of Jerusalem and deposited the Ark of the Covenant within it. It should also be noted that another branch of the Compagnonnage operated in Provence and built many of the Templar churches in the South of France. They were known as the ‘Compagnonnage Tuscana’ (suggesting a link with Tuscany in Italy) who traced their mysteries back to Egypt and Biblical Israel (as do the Freemasons and Rosicrucians) via their Roman and Greek roots. According to Wallace-Murphy and Hopkins, they were part of a collegia of constructors known as ‘Les Tignarii’, supposedly founded by Numa Pompilius

Wallace-Murphy and Hopkins admit that the exact relationship between the Children of Solomon and the Knights Templar is not clear. They query whether the craftsmen were an integral part of the Templar Order, affiliated to it, or just associated with it by usage. The Templars certainly gave a rule to this branch of the Compagnonnage with the agreement of St. Bernard of Clairvaux in March 1145, which laid down rules for living, working and honourable conduct for all the craft initiates involved in the construction of churches (MJF: You may recall that it was St Bernard of Clairvaux who had written the Templars’ rule or constitution). The rule was prefaced as follows:​

We the Knights of Christ and of the Temple follow the destiny that prepares us to die for Christ. We have the wish to give this rule of living, of work and of honour to the constructors of churches so that Christianity can spread through the earth not so that our name should be remembered. Oh Lord, but that Your Name should live.”*

*From La règle de St Devoir de Dieu et de la Croissade

Form this it would seem highly probable that this Order or Fraternity of Craftmasons was affiliated in some way to the Templars. The Children of Solomon were certainly under the protection of the Templars. They were granted great privileges, including freedom from all taxes and protection against legal action by the constructors of other buildings. It may be indicative of the Children of Solomon’s status as regards the Knight Templars’ patronage of their Order that when the Templars were suppressed, the Children of Solomon lost the privileges and immunities granted to Masons. One possible explanation for this loss of privileges may be that proffered by the author John Robinson who in his book Born in Blood described how the fleeing Knights Templar were assisted to safe havens by the lodges of the Craftmasons. The Children of Solomon’s loss of privileges may therefore be seen as retribution for the assistance they gave to the Templars in their time of need.

Whatever the case may be, there can be no doubt about the involvement of both the Knights Templar and the Children of Solomon in the great era of cathedral building today called the ‘Rise of the Gothic’. It may also explain why the Norman King Henry II of England (who spent much of his time in Normandy) chose to appoint Andrȇ de Montbard, the Grand Master of the Knights Templar, to act as Superintendent of the English Masons. How directly involved with this monumental cathedral building program the Templars were is a subject of much debate but as the architectural historian Fred Gettings said of the Templars in his book The Secret Zodiac: “The Knights Templar … were almost openly involved in financing and lending moral support to the building of cathedrals throughout Europe.”

Wallace-Murphy and Hopkins point out that the mysterious early 20th Century Master Alchemist Fulcanelli and his biographer Kenneth Rayner Johnson both believed that Gothic architecture, which they claim arose from Templar knowledge of scared geometry, was also a three-dimensional code which passed its hidden message in an architectural form of ‘la lange verte’ – the green language or the language of initiation. In his famous work Le Mystère des Cathédrales, Fulcanelli described these buildings as a sort of philosophical ‘stock exchange’ where lingering pockets of arcana, with roots in pre-Christian systems, were flouted under the noses of an unsuspecting clergy.

Wallace-Murphy and Hopkins claim that sacred geometry, in this context was an art form encompassing all the skills of engineering, building and design, which its practitioners claim was handed down from master to novice in an unbroken chain from the earliest times until the fall of Jerusalem in AD 70. They believe this chain of communication preserved and passed on the secret knowledge required for the construction of sacred buildings by the ancient Egyptian civilisations and the biblical Israelites. After the fall of Jerusalem, the knowledge was lost until the Knights Templar discovered documentation concerning it during the excavations under the Temple Mount in the early 12th Century (MJF: this claim seems to overlook the fact that sacred geometry was also used by the Greeks and Romans in the building of their sacred sites, which continued even after the fall of Jerusalem, and this knowledge may have been retained in bodies like the Roman Collegia that we looked at earlier).

Now the C’s have confirmed that the Templars did find some documentation during their excavations under the Temple Mount, and this discovery gave them the secret of levitation (anti-gravity):​

Q: Okay. The Templars were formed in Jerusalem. They were there for quite a while with no record of doing any of the things that the group supposedly intended to do. There are a lot of rumours... what were they doing in Jerusalem?

A: Templars held the secret of levitation.

Q: Is this something... and I am talking about the 9 guys in Jerusalem... did they discover some document in Jerusalem that gave them this secret?

A: Yes.


Q: And is this how they were able to get so much support from certain royal houses and so forth?

A: It is time for you to study Kaballah again, but be careful!!


However, this response by the C’s doesn’t confirm that the Templars found some document(s) which gave them secret knowledge required for the construction of sacred buildings, as Wallace-Murphy and Hopkins propose. Instead it speaks of the secret of levitation, which might imply the knowledge of mono-atomic gold, which has proven anti-gravity properties (MJF: the fact that a pot of monoatomic gold powder may have been carried within the Ark of the Covenant might answer the question of how it took only four Levites to carry the Ark, when most experts consider this too few and it may also explain how the Ark reputedly hovered off the ground in the Holy of Holies inside the Temple) or perhaps of sound wave focusing. Another possibility is that the Templars discovered how great stone loads could be supported allowing for high stone structures to be constructed. It was the addition of the flying buttress that allowed the Gothic cathedral builders to erect churches with thin but very high stone walls, which could support large stained-glass windows and seemed to defy gravity. This had not been possible before this invention. Romanesque churches had required large, broad stone columns to support their roofs and had smaller windows. I suspect though that the C’s are referring to the former.

As to Kaballah. in the first part of this article, I noted that the C’s had said that Kaballah had originated from channelled truths given to early pre-Mosaic Jews, who may have included the Levites, a Jewish group that the C’s told us Abraham/Moses was a member of:​

Session 16 October 1994:

Q: (L) What is the origin of the Kaballah?

A: Channelled truths given to early pre-Mosaic Jews to use your terminology.

Q: (L) When the Jewish commentators began setting down the teachings, was this the first time this had been put into writing?

A: No. Not even close.

Q: (L) Is the form that it is in today very close to the original form and can it be relied upon?

A: No. Corrupted.


That last statement regarding its corruption might explain why the C’s had said in the previous extract from the transcripts that when studying Kaballah, one should be careful. Alternatively, they may have meant that there is some very real danger involved in practising or applying Kaballah.

The other thing to note is that the secret knowledge contained in the Kaballah does not appear to have emanated from the ancient Egyptians (as Wallace-Murphy and Hopkins propose) but from channelling by early pre-Mosaic Jews. Since we know that Abraham and Moses were one and the same person, the C’s could just as easily have said ‘pre-Abrahamic Jews’, although this would from a strict religious point of view create a nonsense, as the Jews hold that they are descended from the line of Abraham. So, by ‘early pre-Mosaic Jews’, how far back in time do we need to go to discover which group were channelling these truths and where did they channel them?
Continued in Part 3
 
The Roots of Freemasonry Part 3

The Hidden Hand of History and the Sufis


Wallace-Murphy and Hopkins sagely note that behind the official view of the historical process there is always the so called ‘hidden hand’ of history, which is recorded in the secret traditions handed down over the centuries by folklore, poetry, esoteric schools and secret societies such as the Masons. We have seen this process at work in the form of the ‘underground stream’ during the Renaissance, where artists, poets and writers (including the Grail writers) passed on esoteric knowledge through their artistic works. The artist Nicolas Poussin would be a good example of this, even though he was working towards the end of the Renaissance period. Wallace-Murphy and Hopkins argue that esoteric centres of belief, such as the Chartres mystery school, the Knights Templar and the Compagnonnage, exerted considerable gnostic influence in the world of mainstream Christianity.

However, Wallace-Murphy and Hopkins then draw attention to the fact that another far more ancient spiritual stream from a very different religious and cultural base also contributed significantly to the spread of esoteric knowledge in Europe. This was the Sufis who were only nominally of Islam.

At this point they quote the claim of the 20th Century English poet Robert Graves a mythologist of international repute (who wrote, inter alia, The White Goddess, which I have frequently quoted from) who believed that what we now call Freemasonry began as a Sufi society which first reached England in the reign of King Athelstan (see above) and was introduced into Scotland in the guise of a craft guild. He not only describes the Sufic origins of the Craftmasons but also the part played by the Templars and the transformation of the guilds into Freemasonry. This would seem to rule out the role of the Druids as suggested by Prerston but does give credence to the Templar transmission theory for the origins of modern Feemasonry. Graves traces the origins of the Sufis back to at least the second millennium BC and tells how their hidden mystery was passed through the generations from master to pupil (ref. Robert Graves in his introduction to the first English edition of Idries Shah’s The Sufis). Of course, we know that the Templars had long term interactions with the Assassins in the Middle East, who we learned had their philosophic roots in the teachings of the Grand Lodge of the Ismailis in Cairo. Could Sufi doctrines have underpinned the teachings of the Ismailis? These possible connections make me think of something the C’s said in the session dated 26 July 1997:​

Q: Okay. I have several books on the subject. I will start tomorrow. Now, when the Templars were arrested, they were accused of worshipping a head, or skull, and also the god Baphomet. Were these spurious accusations designed to defame them?

A: Skull was of pure crystal.

Q: What is the definition of the god 'Baphomet,' if they did, indeed, worship such?

A: The holder of the Trent.


[….]

Q: What is the relationship between Perceval, Paran Sikarios, the Assassini, and Ishmael, the son of Hagar, at the well of the mirror?

A: Spear of Destiny.

Q: Are the Ishmaelis the carriers of the true bloodline, and the line of Isaac and Jacob, the Supplanter, the carriers of the monothiestic covenant, are the false line?

A: Close.

Q: Are the Ishmaelis also the carriers of the knowledge of levitation, the cult of the head or the skull...

A: Try to connect to the Templars.

Q: Did the Templars discover the secrets of the Ishmaelis, the Assassini, and is this what they carried into Europe, and then underground?

A: Buried in Galle.


As you know, I think it is the pure crystal skull, ‘Baphomet’ (the Baptism of Metis or Sophia – wisdom), that may be the object or artefact buried in Galle, since although it was known to be in the possession of the Templars, it has never been found. However, you will note in the above that the C’s suggest Laura should try to connect the Ishmaelis and the cult of the head or skull with the Templars. Ishmael was, of course, the son of Hagar (Meritaten/Kore) by Abraham/Moses, mother and son being abandoned, according to the Bible, by Abraham in the Desert of Paran due to the jealousy of Sarah/Nefertiti. Ishmael is by Islamic tradition considered to be the father of the Arab race.

You will note that where Laura asks if the Ishmaelis are the carriers of the true bloodline, the C’s only say “close”. How do we get closer? Well in my view Ishmael may not have stayed in the Middle East but may have journeyed to Northern Europe with his mother, a journey that may be reflected in the story of Helen and Phrixos and the Golden Ram (Fleece). They could have gone to Ireland as part of the fabled Tuatha de Danaan (recall the body of the young Egyptian prince that was found near Tara wearing a necklace almost identical to the one Tutankhamun wore in his burial chamber).

Could the connection with the Templars the C’s refer to be found in the Grand Lodge of the Ismailis in Cairo and with the Sufis and the Assassins? The Grand Lodge of Cairo was an Ismaili institution, Isma'ilism is a branch or sub-sect of Shia Islam. Isma'ilism rose at one point to become the largest branch of Shia Islam, climaxing as a political power with the Fatimid Caliphate in the 10th through 12th centuries, which ruled from Cairo. Originally a dynasty of Arab origin, the Fatimids trace their ancestry to Muhammad's daughter Fatima and her husband Ali b. Abi Talib, the first Shia imam. Ismailis believe in the oneness of God, as well as the closing of divine revelation with Muhammad, whom they see as "the final Prophet and Messenger of God to all humanity”. After the death of Muhammad ibn Isma'il in the 8th century A.D., the teachings of Ismailism further transformed into the belief system as it is known today, with an explicit concentration on the deeper, esoteric meaning (batin) of the Islamic religion. Isma'ili thought is heavily influenced by Neoplatonism, as I mentioned in my earlier article The Truth About Secret Societies. This could clearly be seen in the secret doctrines of the Grand Lodge of Cairo (which in truth were not very Islamic), who through the Assassins may have influenced the Templars. However, since the Ismailis concentrate on the deeper, esoteric meaning of the Islamic faith, their belief system may also have been influenced by the older Sufi esoteric doctrines, which in turn may have made their way into the Templars’ teachings and those of the Compagnons guilds, who they were patrons of, via the Assassins. If so, this would validate what Robert Graves has argued about the Sufi underpinnings of modern-day Freemasonry.

Wallace-Murphy and Hopkins state that the role of the Sufi masters in building Solomon’s Temple is a key point. However, as we now know, Solomon’s Temple was actually the Temple of Knossos on Crete, a necropolis (at which Apis bulls and perhaps people were sacrificed), which would long have predated the supposed building of Solomon’s Temple in Jerusalem. It might suggest though a connection between the Sufi Masters and the Dionysian Artificers of Tyre (the Sons of Solomon), who may have helped in the construction of the Temple of Knossos. Wallace-Murphy and Hopkins then claim that one of the Sufi founders was el Khidir, known as ‘the verdant one’ – green being the colour of illumination. There may, however, have been a connection here with the Green Man (a verdant one), an image to be found in large numbers at Chartres Cathedral and to a lesser degree in most Gothic churches and cathedrals of the Templar era. The authors also point out that there is an abundance of Green Men found among the carvings at Rosslyn Chapel, one of the last medieval churches of its kind to be constructed prior to the Reformation. These carvings of the Green Man refer back directly to the pagan deities of Ishtar/Astarte and Tammuz/Dumuzi and are indicative of the gnostic stream referred to earlier. This connection even survived into British folk traditions as the May Queen with her partner or consort the Green Man or ‘the Green One’ who was clothed all in leaves. Thus, May Day celebrated the sacred marriage and the ritual of the regeneration of life in Spring. As another author, William Anderson in his book The Rise of the Gothic, has stated as regards the association of the Green Man and the medieval Stone Masons:​

Even if one were to regard him at the lowest level as a mascot of the Masons, his presence in so many regions and over so long a period indicates that he had a particular meaning for them. Did he sum up for them the energy they had to transform the energy of both living nature and of the past stored in the collective unconsciousness? Did he, at the same time, express the spirit of inspiration, the genius hidden in created things?

Returning to the Sufis, their teaching reached its zenith in Europe with the Sufi mystery schools of Spain in the ninth century (when much of Spain was occupied by the Moors), from where it slowly began to permeate into Christian Europe along with a Christianised version of the Kabbala, a process which gathered momentum with the formation of the Templar Order. Thus, by the end of the 12th Century a wide variety of gnostic streams had begun to coalesce in secret and exert a subtle yet profound influence over the cultural developments in Western Europe. As well as the Sufi input Jewish kabbalistic thoughts and their Christian derivatives added to the dualistic philosophy of Gnosticism, a combination which built upon the foundations that had long been established as an underground stream in western thinking.

This process of gnostic and kabbalistic thinking being introduced into Europe by the Sufis and the Jews via Spain may also be linked with what the C’s have said about the carriers of a significant bloodline, which could have found its way into the noble houses of France via Spain; France being the country from which the Templars recruited many, if not most, of their knights. This could therefore be the special bloodline we are searching for from which the Percy family (that Laura is descended from), hailing from Normandy in France, is derived:​

Session 3 dated October 1998:

Q: (L) […] Now, when I asked previously about the carriers of this significant bloodline that I am supposed to be tracking, you said to follow the trail from Morocco to Spain to France and included the Canary Islands. Also, that the bloodline was carried by those most capable. Now, I have thought that this might be the Arab connection via the Moors to the noble houses of Spain and then into France. Is this, in fact, the case?

A: Yes.


Reviewing history here, the Samartian/Alans (who were Scythians) would conquer North-West Africa with the Vandals, especially capturing and occupying Algeria and Tunisia where Casablanca is situated. Their empire, which covered all the coast and islands of the western part of the Mediterranean, including Sardinia, Corsica, the Balearics and Sicily endured until 535 A.D., whereafter it was incorporated into the Byzantine Empire. Subsequently, North Africa was conquered by the Moors who then invaded Spain and southern France (Septimania). The Alans former towns on the Iberian Peninsula were overcome by the Goths who then lived on under the name Got-Alania, which eventually became Catalonia. One of the main towns of Catalonia is Girona, which had an ancient Jewish quarter where there was a kabbalistic school. This will feature in a later post I am hoping to do in the near future.

In the earlier session Laura is referring to above, the C’s also referred to certain artefacts holding the key to the mystery (and perhaps to the mystery of Rennes-le-Chateau and Poussin’s painting):​

A: It is not the people but the message, the artifacts hold the key

Q: What artifacts? Where are these artifacts?

A: France, Spain, Canary Islands and Morocco.

Q: What kind of artifacts are they? Things that still exist?

A: Yes.

Q: Is there any possibility that I am going to be able to find out about, or even actually FIND these artifacts?

A: Of course!!

Q: Does anyone else know about these artefacts?


A: Others are "on the trail." [MJF: I would suggest this is a reference to the Rosicrucians amongst others, as well as to various secret services such as MI6.]

Laura later commented on the artefacts in the session dated 3 October 1998:

Q: (L) Okay, you said that the artefacts provide the key. I had a dream the other night that the artefacts in question were the major arcana of the Tarot deck, that they could be used to discover the mystery. Was this a legitimate clue in my dream?

A: Tools. So are astrological charts.


As to the origin of Tarot cards, whilst many commentators believe they may have originated in Italy and were used solely as playing cards for card games prior to the 17th Century, the C’s confirmed they had a much older provenance than this, one which dates back to classical Greece:

Session 13 November 1999:

Q: What do Tarot cards represent?

A: A method for sensitives to tune in with. Or for less psychically endowed persons to "play" with.


[…]

Q: Who invented them?

A: Greek origin, refined in Roman times in France.

Q: Well, I guess that takes care of that!


Although the Tarot deck and astrology are used for divination or fortune telling, the C’s have said elsewhere that the real gift of divination is found within the practitioner and the cards or charts are merely tools or props.

Laura subsequently discovered that the C’s reference to France, Spain, Canary Islands and Morocco also provided a connection to alfalfa:​

Q: (L) Yes, they are circles. The next thing we come to is that I discovered that alfalfa, in fact, a very particular type of alfalfa, does, indeed, grow in the German highlands. And, in fact, this alfalfa was brought via a route that you described... as France, Spain, Canary Islands, Morocco. I was asking about this story of the purported travels of Mary Magdalene, and you said that the people were not important, that the message was. You then said that the ‘artifacts hold the key’ and listed this sequence of places. I found a paper on the subject of alfalfa which described this exact route of the spread of alfalfa and its value in farming because it literally replenishes the ground it is grown in. So, it seems that you were describing the route of the alfalfa plant. Can you comment on this?

A: Now that you have found this out, perhaps you should research the properties of this mineral rich alfalfa and what it does for the body of homo sapiens?!?

They then expanded on this point when later they said that alfalfa can enhance psychic effects in human beings:

Q: (L) Do the properties of alfalfa tend to enhance the non-physical effect, or vice versa?


A: Maybe it enhances the “psychic effects”.


And, of course, the enhancement of psychic effects will aid in channelling.

Returning to the gnostic influence on Western Europe, there is one other group who played a major part in the dissemination of gnostic, dualist philosophy during the early Middle Ages and that was, of course, the Cathars, who were especially strong in southern France and over the border in Catalonia until they were ruthlessly destroyed by the Church in the Albigensian Crusade. Since the Templars recruited from areas that were heavily influenced by the Cathars, there is no doubt that many Templars may have been recruited from Cathar families. This fact alone would explain why the Templars were so reluctant to join the Albigensian Crusade. It would also explain how dualistic ideas and symbols manifested themselves within the Knights Templar. Even the role of the Templars was dualistic in essence, since they were both warriors, men of war, and peaceful monks (like the Levites before them). The black and white of their battle standard, the Beausseante, can also be seen as dualistic (black and white representing light and darkness, which may also be reflected in the black and white floor tiles of Masonic temples today) as can the Templar seal of two knights on one horse, which may represent Castor and Pollux the Gemini twins, one semi-divine, the other human. The Abraxus, which was the seal of the Grand Master of the Templar Order, was pure gnostic symbolism of such a nature that it is incapable of being described as orthodox.​

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Seal of a Templar Grand Master in a French charter dated 1214, depicting Abraxas

The word Abraxas (or Abrasax or Abracax) was engraved on certain antique stones, called Abraxas stones, which were used as amulets or charms by Gnostic sects. The image most associated with Abraxas is that of a composite creature with the head of a rooster, the body of a man, and legs made of serpents or scorpions, carrying a whip and shield. The Gnostics identified Abraxas with Yahweh (under the Greek form "IAO"). Amulets and seals bearing the figure of Abraxas were popular in the 2nd century, and these stones survived in the treasuries of the Middle Ages.​

The Templar Transmission Theory

The Templar role in transmitting masonic doctrine to modern Freemasonry is a major topic in itself, which deserves a post of its own. It is still a contentious theory but one that has gained traction in recent times. One key part of the theory is the role the Sinclair family, the Lords of Rosslyn, played in this transmission. That the Sinclairs had strong links to the Knights Templar dating back to the Order’s foundation is not in doubt. Hence, it certainly makes sense that if a group of Templars fleeing France in 1307 made landfall in Scotland, they would have found willing allies and helpers in the Sinclairs. Whether that family helped the Templars in the creation of speculative, as opposed to operative, Freemasonry in Scotland is the point in issue. They may though have left one significant piece of evidence behind to support this contention and that is the highly gnostic Chapel of Rosslyn.

I shall leave it to a subsequent post to tackle this issue but for now I want to concentrate first on a modern secret society with roots in Germany and then on two men who played a key role in the creation of the original English colonies in America but who would suffer two very different fates, one being lauded, ennobled and made Lord Chancellor of Britain, the other dying as a traitor to his king. They are, of course, Sir Francis Bacon and Sir Walter Raleigh.​
 
I have not posted anything since 14th January, as I have been heavily involved in closing out the sale of my house, which I am glad to say completed last Friday but only after some last minute hitches that strained my nerves. Apart from being a great weight off my mind, it should allow me more time now for new postings. The first of these is in response to Voyageur's comments about Prescott Bush and IG Farben and sets out details of the secret society known as Skull and Bones that he was a member of.
The Skull and Bones Society

In my research into secret societies such as the Freemasons and the Rosicrucians, I came across material on the ‘Skull & Bones Society’. Unlike Freemasonry and Rosicrucianism, which are esoteric movements with a global presence, the Skull & Bones Society is linked with one place only and that is Yale University in the United States.

The members of the Society are drawn purely from the ranks of Yale University students. Once a member, you are a member for life. Although masonic style fraternity houses are a common feature at most American universities, the Skull & Bones Fraternity (although it now admits women) is noted for the fact that its membership is drawn form the elite of U.S. society and includes in its ranks former U.S. Presidents, the CEOs of major U.S. companies, senior statesmen, military officers and government and judicial officials, as well as notable politicians and state governors etc. With such illustrious alumni, one is entitled to wonder whether “Bonesmen” (as they are called) are able to wield great influence on US and world affairs.

John Lawrence Reynolds in his book Secret Societies – Their Mysteries Revealed refers to this influence and points out that it is not achieved through a tightly knit organisational structure like the Freemasons but through an association of privileged young men attending a prestigious university. As he states:​

Its existence is verifiable, its history is linked to Masonic traditions and Illuminati objectives, its practices remain shadowy, and its activities are replete with suspicious behaviour. It is Skull & Bones, a hatchery of American leadership whose members have not only achieved power and prominence on a scale far in excess of their numbers, but retain their close bond throughout their careers, creating at least the semblance of a cabal and perhaps something much more than that.

Skull & Bones resides in a windowless mausoleum-like building on the campus of Yale University, which is known unofficially as ‘The Tomb’. This brownstone building was built in 1856 and remains the site of the group’s meetings each Thursday and Sunday evening. Only 15 new members are chosen annually, being selected from the junior class for membership in Skull & Bones, serving during their senior year. This means that the organisation’s focus is on its members’ future activities in the outside world, not on their temporary campus life. As to the veil of secrecy that surrounds the society, non-members who enquire about its actions and membership are openly referred to as “outsiders” and “vandals” by Bonesmen. All Skull & Bones members are required to deny any connection with the organisation. If the group’s name is mentioned in public, they must leave the room or area with no comment.​

Origins

How did Skull & Bones come into being? Its origins lie with William Huntingdon Russell, whose family operated a Firm called Russell & Company. In 1832 he returned from an extended visit in Germany to begin his senior year at Yale. It should be noted that at that time Germany was in the grip of Hegelian philosophy, Georg Hegel having died whilst a professor at the University of Berlin the year before Russell arrived. Hegel’s concepts based on ‘Absolute Reason’ were enormously influential and would serve as the theoretical underpinnings of both Communism and Nazism.

When Russell returned to Yale he was overflowing with admiration for German society and Hegelian assumptions in particular. Soon after arriving in New Haven, he partnered with a fellow student, Alphonso Taft, to form The Order of Scull and Bones, which later became the Order of Skull & Bones. It should be noted though that in the mid-1800’s Skull & Bones was only one of at least seven fraternity groups at Yale who adopted rituals and identities on campus, with their members sharing secret signals and adopting names such as Scroll & Key, Book & Snake, File & Claw and Wolf’s Head, their respective members delighting in the exclusivity of their fraternity’s name and rituals. However, the most exclusive, most secretive, and most ritualistic of them all was Skull & Bones.​

Possible links to the Illuminati

Inevitably, the original German connection of Skull & Bones has produced speculation about a direct connection between Skull & Bones and the Illuminati. However, there is nothing overt which can link the two organisations together. It is possible that the origins of Skull & Bones may lie instead with the Rosicrucians, who have had a strong presence in Germany for hundreds of years (the Rosicrucian Manifestos of the early 17th Century were, after all, originally published in Germany). The ‘skull and crossbones’ symbolism is also linked with Freemasonry and, for reasons explored before on this thread, with the Knights Templar (ref. the great lady of Maraclea tale).

Given the Illuminati (and Knights Templar) links with banking and trade, an indirect connection might be found in the source of William Huntingdon Russell’s family’s wealth. This came chiefly as a result of supplying the Chinese people with hundreds of tons of opium each year during the 19th Century. Continued efforts by Chinese authorities to ban opium, which led to resistance by the exporting countries, would eventually lead to the First Opium War in 1840, which the Chinese would lose against the British. Under the 1842 Treaty of Nanking, Britain humiliated China by negotiating favoured rights of opium importation into China. The United States and France added their signatures to the treaty two years later. Russell & Company profited directly from this formalisation of opium rights. The firm became the third largest opium trader in the world, behind Scottish merchants (and later bankers) Jardine-Matheson and the British company Dent. For a time, Russell & Company remained the only opium importer in Canton.

Intriguingly, the chief of operations for the Russell company’s Canton office was Warren Delano Jr., the grandfather of future U.S. president Franklin Delano Roosevelt (a notable freemason and an active seeker after the Oak Island treasure). Delano’s position marked the first of a lengthy list of influential persons associated with the company and Skull & Bones. The founder Russell became a general in the U.S. Army and a state legislator, whilst Taft rose through the government and ambassadorial ranks to become Secretary of War – a post subsequently held by many Bonesmen – and he would father William Howard Taft, the only man in U.S. history to serve as both President and chief justice of the Supreme Court.

The list of Skull & Bones members reads like a Who’s Who of the most prominent males in the U.S. The names include Whitney, Bundy, Harriman, Weyerhaeuser, Pinchot, Rockefeller, Goodyear, Sloan, Stimson, Pillsbury, Kellogg, Vanderbilt, Lovett and, of course, Bush.​

How did the name Skull & Bones originate?

John Lawrence Reynolds tells us that in 1876 a group of Yale students calling themselves The Order of File and Claw broke into The Tomb and gleefully described its interior. This description, sounding more like a 19th Century boy’s club than a gathering place for world leaders, was of an interior room identified as Parlour 323 where apparently:

On the west wall hung among other pictures, an old engraving representing an open burial vault, in which on a stone slab, rest four human skulls, grouped about a fool’s cap and bells, an open book, several mathematical instruments, a beggar‘s scrip, and a royal crown. On the arched wall above the vault are the explanatory words, in Roman letters, “Wer war der Thor, wer Weiser, wer Bettler, oder Kaiser?” And below the vault is engraved … the sentence: “Ob Arm, ob Reich, in Tode gleich.” (meaning “Who was the fool, who was the wise man, beggar or king? Whether rich or poor, all’s the same in death.”).

Although Reynolds does not comment on it, I find this imagery quite fascinating here since it first of all suggests a German, and possibly a Rosicrucian, influence – Germany being a centre for Rosicrucianism (the Protestant leader Martin Luther is suspected by many observers as being a Rosicrucian since he wore a signet ring with the rosy cross on it). Did Russell discover the old engraving whilst on his sabbatical in Germany perhaps or was it given to him by a German mentor? If any reader is aware of this work of art and the artist who painted it, please feel free to comment.

The imagery of a burial vault and human skull(s) is, of course, that of a memento mori - Latin for 'remember that you have to die'. Thus, it is an artistic or symbolic trope acting as a reminder of the inevitability of death. The concept has its roots in the philosophers of classical antiquity and Christianity and appeared in funerary art and architecture from the medieval period onwards. As we know, the skull and cross bones symbolism is linked with both the Knights Templar and Freemasons and sometimes appears on the tombs of Templars and Freemasons. The references in the picture to an open book and mathematical instruments may also provide a further connection to Freemasonry (and by extension the Illuminati), which always has a religious book such as the Bible open at its meetings and uses objects like compasses and set squares as important symbols in its teachings​

One exponent of this artistic trope was, of course, the artist Nicolas Poussin who painted two versions on the theme of the Shepherds of Arcadia where a burial vault appears in both works and a human skull in the first of them:

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There may be no connection at all with the burial vault and human skulls’ theme as used by both Poussin and the artist who painted the engraving hanging on the wall of The Tomb at Yale, but we should recall here that many commentators consider Nicolas Poussin to have been a 17th Century Rosicrucian who is suspected of hiding or encrypting an occult message in his more famous second version of The Shepherds of Arcadia, where the message on the tomb reads “Et in Arcadia Ego”.

Again, there may be no connection at all, but I note that the skulls meant to represent those of the fool, the wise man or magician, and the king may link up with characters depicted in the Major Arcana of the Tarot Deck. If the skull of a beggar can be linked with that of a Hermit, this might also signify the wise man too, as the two figures seem to be interchangeable depending on who the noted Tarot commentator is. Is this just mere coincidence?​

Strange Traditions

Whatever the case may be as regards a possible Rosicrucian or Illuminati link, there is evidence of the Skull & Bones Fraternity mining ancient tradition, which has led to a rather bizarre practice. A century after the account of The Tomb described above, the girlfriend of a Skull & Bones initiate (who evidently was ill chosen as a member of a secret society) revealed that she had been escorted by him on a tour of The Tomb. Her most vivid memory of the interior was the sight of a wall covered by car number or license plates. Every plate bore the number 322, alluding apparently to the year of death of the famous Greek orator Demosthenes in 322 BC, the mythical year in which Skull & Bones was supposedly founded. She was informed that all Skull & Bones members were obliged to “confiscate” any license plate on which the figures 322 appeared and bring them to The Tomb where they are hung on the wall. What an odd tradition indeed.

However, a tradition of snatching car number plates may seem trivial compared to the antics that some undergraduates at US universities have been known get up to but stealing real human skulls is quite another matter.

There is reportedly a long tradition of the Fraternity whereby each class of Skull & Bones is required to “confiscate” the skull of a famous individual, subsequently bringing it back to The Tomb. Many of these skulls remain on display in The Tomb. Stealing car license plates involving petty larceny is one thing but stealing a skull entails grave robbing, a far more serious offence. Is there any evidence for this practice? Well, yes there is, and it involves none other than the dynastic head of the current Bush political family, Prescott Bush.

Reynolds reveals that in 1989 a man named Phillip Romero visited the award winning US writer Howard Altman and claimed to be the great-great-grandson of the celebrated Apache warrior Geronimo (see; Geronimo - Wikipedia). Although Geronimo was viewed by history as a chieftain who led large raiding parties of Apache warriors, he was in reality a shaman or witch doctor. According to Romero, his ancestors’ bones were among those on display in the Skull & Bones collection. Romero claimed that the bones had been removed from Geronimo’s grave in 1918 by Prescott Bush, the father of President George Herbert W Bush and grandfather of President George W Bush. Altman naturally asked for verification of the claim before publicising it. Romero put Altman in contact with a man called Ned Anderson, who resided on an Apache reservation in San Carlos. According to Anderson, a few years earlier a public debate between him and another family regarding the relocation of Geronimo’s remains from Fort Sill, Oklahoma to Arizona attracted the attention of a Bonesman who wanted to be identified only as Pat. The bones, Pat declared, had been used in rituals conducted by the mysterious Skull & Bones Society.

It seems the story rang true since Prescott Bush had been stationed at Fort Sill in 1918, when the theft of Geronimo’s skull was alleged to have taken place. Adding to the story’s veracity is the reported existence of a privately printed document authored by F.O. Matthiessen, a Skull & Bones member, describing the expedition and the recovery of Geronimo’s skull from the grave. Intriguingly, a sample of the document has been placed in a library at Harvard where, under an agreement between both Skull & Bones and the executors of Matthiessen’s estate, it remains unavailable to public view.

Anderson recruited his state senator, the late John McCain (MJF: who has a very interesting history himself) to pursue the matter in 1986 with then U.S. Vice-President George H W Bush. McCain reportedly arranged a meeting between Anderson and a number of Skull & Bones representatives including Jonathon Bush, the Vice-President’s brother. According to Anderson, the Skull & Bones members presented him with a skull they claimed to be his ancestor’s, offering it in exchange for a document preventing him and representatives of Skull & Bones from discussing the incident. Anderson refused, objecting to the gag order and not believing that the skull on offer was actually Geronimo’s. It should be noted that, like most U.S. states, Connecticut where Yale is located banned ownership of human remains except for specialised legal or professional purposes. It seems that Skull & Bones believes, as with “confiscating” license plates, that such a ban does not apply to them.

The controversy over Geronimo’s skull launched a number of similar charges regarding the Skull & Bones collection, including one that The Tomb housed the skull of legendary Mexican revolutionary leader Pancho Villa and that a child’s skull was also among those on display. Reynolds points out that hard evidence is lacking, not surprisingly you may think when you consider the charges and the nature of Skull & Bones. However, Reynolds make the further point that when compared with other activities of the Society, confiscated license plates and purloined skulls are petty concerns relative to espionage, drug smuggling, war profiteering (ref. Prescott Bush and his Bank’s links with the Nazi regime through Union Banking Corporation - Hitler’s Wall Street Financier) and interference in the internal affairs of sovereign nations and states, all involving Bonesmen. As he states, where these subjects are concerned, proof galore exists.

The Selection Process and Initiation Rituals

Reynolds states that the selection process for Skull & Bones is suitably dramatic. On a chosen night in April, Skull & Bones seniors arrive outside the rooms of each of the selected juniors, one by one, and pound loudly on the door. When the candidate opens the door, a Bonesman slams him on the shoulder and bellows “Skull & Bones – do you accept?

If the candidate accepts the invitation, a note wrapped in pink ribbon and sealed with black wax is handed over to him. Inside, along with the Skull & Bones mystical number 322, the message instructs the candidate to appear at The Tomb on initiation night and not to wear any metal (MJF: this reminds me of the instructions for the building of the Temple of Solomon, which included restrictions on the use of iron in either the preparation of the materials or the putting together of the building itself, as discussed in the transcripts).

Reynolds states that for most of its history, the initiation rites for Bonesmen remained among the best-kept secrets of the group, although bit by bit certain activities have come to light. The most enduring ritual obliged the initiate to relate the story of his life in two instalments. The first episode, which is delivered on a Thursday night, covered general aspects of the new member’s life, a narrative as bland or as entertaining as he chooses. The second episode, conducted on the following Sunday evening, required him to lie naked in a coffin while recounting details of his sexual history.

Variations on the ritual seem to have come and gone. During the years between the two world wars, initiates such as W. Averell Harriman and Time magazine founder Henry Luce reportedly underwent the sex-tales-in-a coffin rite of passage. However, in the late 1930’s, when future U.S. Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart was a Bonesman, seniors dressed in skeleton suits and howled at new candidates, whose initiation into the group required them to wrestle naked in a pit of mud. The reward for initiated Bonesmen may have made up for this humiliation for acceptance into the Society reportedly brought with it a $15,000 cash gift and, upon his marriage, a wedding gift of a good quality grandfather clock.

The ritual of lying in a coffin naked is in keeping with many of the initiation rites of the old mystery schools of the ancient world, which often involved the initiate staying for a time in a dark cave or similar environment before emerging to a new (enlightened) life in the light – this is also reflected in the underground initiation rites of the Knights Templar and in modern Freemasonry where the initiate is blindfolded (the origin of the term ‘hoodwinked’) and then led into the light of Masonry. The Skull & Bones Society may even have been channelling another earlier organisation whose rituals took place underground and who were renowned for their supposed debauchery and that is the 18th Century British Hellfire Club (which the American Founding Father, scientist and statesman Benjamin Franklin was a member of).

The rise of Prescott Bush (Yale class of 1917), no doubt helped by his Skull & Bones connections and his marriage to the daughter of George Herbert Walker (one of the wealthiest men in America and an associate of Averell Harriman, Yale class of 1913) deserves a post in its own right, which I may do later unless anyone else would like to take up the challenge.

The CIA connection

Apart from the apparent financial/political linkage among Skull & Bones members (as epitomised by Prescott Bush) that alarms so many people, most disturbingly, the Yale secret society has made probably its biggest impact on that most influential of all government-administered secret societies, the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (“CIA”). In some ways this reflects the way in which the Rosicrucians had a similar impact on the English Secret Service of Queen Elizabeth and her successor King James I, where the likes of Sir Francis Bacon (who eventually would control it as the King’s spymaster) and Dr. John Dee, both suspected of being senior Rosicrucians, played an important part as agents and cypher experts. Indeed, the connection between secret society members and the present successor to the Elizabethan Secret Service, the British Secret Intelligence Service, generally known as MI6, would still seem to be maintained in modern times when one discovers that so many of its agents have been Freemasons (e.g., Ian Fleming, Kim Philby, Guy Burgess and Donald Maclean – the latter three being members of the Cambridge University group known as the ‘Apostles’).

Reynolds produces a long list of Bonesmen associated with the U.S. intelligence community via the CIA and its forerunner, the Office of Strategic Services (OSS) during their careers. This list includes George Herbert Bush who would go on to head the CIA. As Reynolds points out, Bonesmen are bright, ambitious and, based upon their membership of the secret Yale society, eminently qualified to serve in a covert organisation like the CIA. Concerns arise, however, when layers of secrecy concealing many Bonesmen associations and activities are peeled away, revealing suggestions of extracurricular clandestine actions and evidence of remarkable coincidences.

One of these Reynolds notes is the way in which the Russell Trust Association, the official name of Skull & Bones ceased to exist, being replaced as the parent organisation of Skull & Bones by RTA Inc., a name that it assumed at 10.15 am on 14th April 1961. That is an interesting date and time since less than two hours later the CIA launched its self-financed and self-directed invasion of communist Cuba, which would result in the disastrous Bay of Pigs debacle. The CIA’s mastermind behind this folly was Richard Drain, a Bonesmen of the class of 1943. The Whitehouse liaison was McGeorge Bundy, Skull & Bones class of 1940 who worked closely with his brother William P Bundy, Skull & Bones class of 1939 who was at the State Department. Reynolds claims that these three together cooked up one of the greatest foreign misadventures in U.S. history, which led directly to the Cuban Missile Crisis, bringing the world the closest it has yet come to nuclear war.

No one has ever revealed the source of funding that enabled the invasion, but suspicion remains that it was the U.S. government via a CIA operations group. Reynolds suggests that without an existing Russell Trust Association, any record of a potential involvement of the Skull & Bones parent organisation as covert manager of the funds was neatly erased on the morning of the invasion. However, Reynolds notes that the individual who handle the paperwork on the name changeover and the incorporation of RTA was Howard Weaver, Skull & Bones class of 1945, who had conveniently retired from covert work at the CIA less than two years earlier.

Reynolds states that coincidences grow curiouser and curiouser. He alleges that George H.W. Bush may or may not have been working for the CIA in the years between 1958 and 1966, which encompasses the timing of the Bay of Pigs operation. His official record identifies him only as Chairman of the Board of Zapata Offshore Oil, a company headquartered in Houston, Texas. Reynolds makes the good point that without some experience in espionage work, Bush’s selection as CIA Director in 1974 seems strange to say the least. He argues that more than one reliable source has claimed that Zapata Offshore Oil was a cover for CIA operations. Even more curiously, Zapata just happened to be the CIA’s code name for the Bay of Pigs invasion. Just to add more spice to the conspiracy, two of the support vessels for the operation were identified as the Houston and the Barbara (the name of Bush’s wife). The latter designation is very intriguing since, during his World War II career as a U.S. Navy pilot, Bush named every aircraft he flew after his wife, Barbara Bush.

There is yet another coincidence involving the former President George H.W. Bush, which relates to the assassination of President John F Kennedy. One week after the assassination of the President, an official FBI document noted that information on possible Cuban exile involvement in the President’s death had been received “orally furnished to Mr. George Bush of the Central Intelligence Agency and Captain William Edwards of the Defense Intelligence Agency on November 23, 1963, by Mr. W.T. Forsyth of this Bureau.

When a reprint of this document appeared in the July 1988 issue of The Nation, on the cusp of Bush’s run for the U.S. presidency, the CIA quickly released a statement claiming that the “Mr. George Bush” referred to was not really the current candidate for the highest office in the USA but a different man with a similar name: George William Bush. Initially, this appeared to deflect suspicion about the presidential candidate’s hidden career as a spook (or spy). Unfortunately for Bush, George William Bush then emerged from obscurity to admit that he had once been employed by the CIA among other government offices he had worked for, but only as a low-level research and analyst clerk. In an affidavit, he then confirmed that having read the FBI memorandum, he could categorically state that he could not recognise the contents of the memorandum as information furnished to him orally or otherwise during his time at the CIA (indeed during his time at the CIA he had never received any oral communications from any government agency of any nature). He concluded that he could not possibly have been the Mr. George Bush of the CIA referred to in the memorandum.

This rebuttal leaves open the logical conclusion that George H.W. Bush was a CIA operative at a time when he claimed not to be. However, it is known that Bush also had, at the time, an alliance with Cuban exiles who were furious with Kennedy’s disassociation from the Bay of Pigs failure. Reynolds notes that this has led some observers to link Bush with both the Bay of Pigs fiasco and the 1963 assassination of President Kennedy, which conspiracy theorists still speculate about to this day.​

The Society Today

Reynolds notes that today whatever influence and impact Skull & Bones had beyond the Yale campus may now be waning. As he points out, the innermost secrets of Skull & Bones have been leaking through the stone walls of The Tomb for several years now. Indeed, perhaps the most important change of all occurred in 1992 when, after a bitter rear guard battle by old Bonesmen, the organisation eventually agreed to admit women (N.B. something the Freemasons will still not do). Moreover, the Society now also recruits blacks and Jews as potential members, something it would not entertain for the first 150 years of its existence. This development makes it doubtful whether any of the old lurid, sexual initiation rites are still practised. As Reynolds states, the male White Anglo-Saxon Protestant (WASP) contingent of American society is no longer as exclusive as it was a generation or two ago and secret societies on campus today are considered at best as outdated anachronisms. Indeed, he claims that in recent years more Yale juniors have declined an invitation to become a member of the Skull & Bones Society than have accepted it. In a day of hand-held instant messaging and social media platforms, global economics and tech-based fortunes, the networking arrangement that boosted the U.S. privileged and monied class even higher in the pecking order is not nearly as influential or necessary as it was. Incidentally, the same points can be made for other secret societies such as Freemasonry, where membership has been in steady decline for many decades now.

I would only add here that secret societies have come and gone over the centuries, as witness the Hellfire Club and the Round Table. Nevertheless, secret societies, which preserve esoteric and arcane knowledge, have a way of reinventing themselves under new guises to fit the social environment operating within each age. Hence, I would not rule out their continued existence through different organisations, guises and names. I would argue strongly that this is precisely what the Rosicrucians and the Osirians (assuming they are not one and the same group) have been doing successfully for thousands of years.​
 
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I have not posted anything since 14th January, as I have been heavily involved in closing out the sale of my house, which I am glad to say completed last Friday but only after some last minute hitches that strained my nerves. Apart from being a great weight off my mind, it should allow me more time now for new postings. The first of these is in response to Voyageur's comments about Prescott Bush and IG Farben and sets out details of the secret society known as Skull and Bones that he was a member of.
The Skull and Bones Society

In my research into secret societies such as the Freemasons and the Rosicrucians, I came across material on the ‘Skull & Bones Society’. Unlike Freemasonry and Rosicrucianism, which are esoteric movements with a global presence, the Skull & Bones Society is linked with one place only and that is Yale University in the United States.

The members of the Society are drawn purely from the ranks of Yale University students. Once a member, you are a member for life. Although masonic style fraternity houses are a common feature at most American universities, the Skull & Bones Fraternity (although it now admits women) is noted for the fact that its membership is drawn form the elite of U.S. society and includes in its ranks former U.S. Presidents, the CEOs of major U.S. companies, senior statesmen, military officers and government and judicial officials, as well as notable politicians and state governors etc. With such illustrious alumni, one is entitled to wonder whether “Bonesmen” (as they are called) are able to wield great influence on US and world affairs.

John Lawrence Reynolds in his book Secret Societies – Their Mysteries Revealed refers to this influence and points out that it is not achieved through a tightly knit organisational structure like the Freemasons but through an association of privileged young men attending a prestigious university. As he states:​

Its existence is verifiable, its history is linked to Masonic traditions and Illuminati objectives, its practices remain shadowy, and its activities are replete with suspicious behaviour. It is Skull & Bones, a hatchery of American leadership whose members have not only achieved power and prominence on a scale far in excess of their numbers, but retain their close bond throughout their careers, creating at least the semblance of a cabal and perhaps something much more than that.

Skull & Bones resides in a windowless mausoleum-like building on the campus of Yale University, which is known unofficially as ‘The Tomb’. This brownstone building was built in 1856 and remains the site of the group’s meetings each Thursday and Sunday evening. Only 15 new members are chosen annually, being selected from the junior class for membership in Skull & Bones, serving during their senior year. This means that the organisation’s focus is on its members’ future activities in the outside world, not on their temporary campus life. As to the veil of secrecy that surrounds the society, non-members who enquire about its actions and membership are openly referred to as “outsiders” and “vandals” by Bonesmen. All Skull & Bones members are required to deny any connection with the organisation. If the group’s name is mentioned in public, they must leave the room or area with no comment.​

Origins

How did Skull & Bones come into being? Its origins lie with William Huntingdon Russell, whose family operated a Firm called Russell & Company. In 1832 he returned from an extended visit in Germany to begin his senior year at Yale. It should be noted that at that time Germany was in the grip of Hegelian philosophy, Georg Hegel having died whilst a professor at the University of Berlin the year before Russell arrived. Hegel’s concepts based on ‘Absolute Reason’ were enormously influential and would serve as the theoretical underpinnings of both Communism and Nazism.

When Russell returned to Yale he was overflowing with admiration for German society and Hegelian assumptions in particular. Soon after arriving in New Haven, he partnered with a fellow student, Alphonso Taft, to form The Order of Scull and Bones, which later became the Order of Skull & Bones. It should be noted though that in the mid-1800’s Skull & Bones was only one of at least seven fraternity groups at Yale who adopted rituals and identities on campus, with their members sharing secret signals and adopting names such as Scroll & Key, Book & Snake, File & Claw and Wolf’s Head, their respective members delighting in the exclusivity of their fraternity’s name and rituals. However, the most exclusive, most secretive, and most ritualistic of them all was Skull & Bones.​

Possible links to the Illuminati

Inevitably, the original German connection of Skull & Bones has produced speculation about a direct connection between Skull & Bones and the Illuminati. However, there is nothing overt which can link the two organisations together. It is possible that the origins of Skull & Bones may lie instead with the Rosicrucians, who have had a strong presence in Germany for hundreds of years (the Rosicrucian Manifestos of the early 17th Century were, after all, originally published in Germany). The ‘skull and crossbones’ symbolism is also linked with Freemasonry and, for reasons explored before on this thread, with the Knights Templar (ref. the great lady of Maraclea tale).

Given the Illuminati (and Knights Templar) links with banking and trade, an indirect connection might be found in the source of William Huntingdon Russell’s family’s wealth. This came chiefly as a result of supplying the Chinese people with hundreds of tons of opium each year during the 19th Century. Continued efforts by Chinese authorities to ban opium, which led to resistance by the exporting countries, would eventually lead to the First Opium War in 1840, which the Chinese would lose against the British. Under the 1842 Treaty of Nanking, Britain humiliated China by negotiating favoured rights of opium importation into China. The United States and France added their signatures to the treaty two years later. Russell & Company profited directly from this formalisation of opium rights. The firm became the third largest opium trader in the world, behind Scottish merchants (and later bankers) Jardine-Matheson and the British company Dent. For a time, Russell & Company remained the only opium importer in Canton.

Intriguingly, the chief of operations for the Russell company’s Canton office was Warren Delano Jr., the grandfather of future U.S. president Franklin Delano Roosevelt (a notable freemason and an active seeker after the Oak Island treasure). Delano’s position marked the first of a lengthy list of influential persons associated with the company and Skull & Bones. The founder Russell became a general in the U.S. Army and a state legislator, whilst Taft rose through the government and ambassadorial ranks to become Secretary of War – a post subsequently held by many Bonesmen – and he would father William Howard Taft, the only man in U.S. history to serve as both President and chief justice of the Supreme Court.

The list of Skull & Bones members reads like a Who’s Who of the most prominent males in the U.S. The names include Whitney, Bundy, Harriman, Weyerhaeuser, Pinchot, Rockefeller, Goodyear, Sloan, Stimson, Pillsbury, Kellogg, Vanderbilt, Lovett and, of course, Bush.​

How did the name Skull & Bones originate?

John Lawrence Reynolds tells us that in 1876 a group of Yale students calling themselves The Order of File and Claw broke into The Tomb and gleefully described its interior. This description, sounding more like a 19th Century boy’s club than a gathering place for world leaders, was of an interior room identified as Parlour 323 where apparently:

On the west wall hung among other pictures, an old engraving representing an open burial vault, in which on a stone slab, rest four human skulls, grouped about a fool’s cap and bells, an open book, several mathematical instruments, a beggar‘s scrip, and a royal crown. On the arched wall above the vault are the explanatory words, in Roman letters, “Wer war der Thor, wer Weiser, wer Bettler, oder Kaiser?” And below the vault is engraved … the sentence: “Ob Arm, ob Reich, in Tode gleich.” (meaning “Who was the fool, who was the wise man, beggar or king? Whether rich or poor, all’s the same in death.”).

Although Reynolds does not comment on it, I find this imagery quite fascinating here since it first of all suggests a German, and possibly a Rosicrucian, influence – Germany being a centre for Rosicrucianism (the Protestant leader Martin Luther is suspected by many observers as being a Rosicrucian since he wore a signet ring with the rosy cross on it). Did Russell discover the old engraving whilst on his sabbatical in Germany perhaps or was it given to him by a German mentor? If any reader is aware of this work of art and the artist who painted it, please feel free to comment.

The imagery of a burial vault and human skull(s) is, of course, that of a memento mori - Latin for 'remember that you have to die'. Thus, it is an artistic or symbolic trope acting as a reminder of the inevitability of death. The concept has its roots in the philosophers of classical antiquity and Christianity and appeared in funerary art and architecture from the medieval period onwards. As we know, the skull and cross bones symbolism is linked with both the Knights Templar and Freemasons and sometimes appears on the tombs of Templars and Freemasons. The references in the picture to an open book and mathematical instruments may also provide a further connection to Freemasonry (and by extension the Illuminati), which always has a religious book such as the Bible open at its meetings and uses objects like compasses and set squares as important symbols in its teachings​

One exponent of this artistic trope was, of course, the artist Nicolas Poussin who painted two versions on the theme of the Shepherds of Arcadia where a burial vault appears in both works and a human skull in the first of them:

View attachment 70014

There may be no connection at all with the burial vault and human skulls’ theme as used by both Poussin and the artist who painted the engraving hanging on the wall of The Tomb at Yale, but we should recall here that many commentators consider Nicolas Poussin to have been a 17th Century Rosicrucian who is suspected of hiding or encrypting an occult message in his more famous second version of The Shepherds of Arcadia, where the message on the tomb reads “Et in Arcadia Ego”.

Again, there may be no connection at all, but I note that the skulls meant to represent those of the fool, the wise man or magician, and the king may link up with characters depicted in the Major Arcana of the Tarot Deck. If the skull of a beggar can be linked with that of a Hermit, this might also signify the wise man too, as the two figures seem to be interchangeable depending on who the noted Tarot commentator is. Is this just mere coincidence?​

Strange Traditions

Whatever the case may be as regards a possible Rosicrucian or Illuminati link, there is evidence of the Skull & Bones Fraternity mining ancient tradition, which has led to a rather bizarre practice. A century after the account of The Tomb described above, the girlfriend of a Skull & Bones initiate (who evidently was ill chosen as a member of a secret society) revealed that she had been escorted by him on a tour of The Tomb. Her most vivid memory of the interior was the sight of a wall covered by car number or license plates. Every plate bore the number 322, alluding apparently to the year of death of the famous Greek orator Demosthenes in 322 BC, the mythical year in which Skull & Bones was supposedly founded. She was informed that all Skull & Bones members were obliged to “confiscate” any license plate on which the figures 322 appeared and bring them to The Tomb where they are hung on the wall. What an odd tradition indeed.

However, a tradition of snatching car number plates may seem trivial compared to the antics that some undergraduates at US universities have been known get up to but stealing real human skulls is quite another matter.

There is reportedly a long tradition of the Fraternity whereby each class of Skull & Bones is required to “confiscate” the skull of a famous individual, subsequently bringing it back to The Tomb. Many of these skulls remain on display in The Tomb. Stealing car license plates involving petty larceny is one thing but stealing a skull entails grave robbing, a far more serious offence. Is there any evidence for this practice? Well, yes there is, and it involves none other than the dynastic head of the current Bush political family, Prescott Bush.

Reynolds reveals that in 1989 a man named Phillip Romero visited the award winning US writer Howard Altman and claimed to be the great-great-grandson of the celebrated Apache warrior Geronimo (see; Geronimo - Wikipedia). Although Geronimo was viewed by history as a chieftain who led large raiding parties of Apache warriors, he was in reality a shaman or witch doctor. According to Romero, his ancestors’ bones were among those on display in the Skull & Bones collection. Romero claimed that the bones had been removed from Geronimo’s grave in 1918 by Prescott Bush, the father of President George Herbert W Bush and grandfather of President George W Bush. Altman naturally asked for verification of the claim before publicising it. Romero put Altman in contact with a man called Ned Anderson, who resided on an Apache reservation in San Carlos. According to Anderson, a few years earlier a public debate between him and another family regarding the relocation of Geronimo’s remains from Fort Sill, Oklahoma to Arizona attracted the attention of a Bonesman who wanted to be identified only as Pat. The bones, Pat declared, had been used in rituals conducted by the mysterious Skull & Bones Society.

It seems the story rang true since Prescott Bush had been stationed at Fort Sill in 1918, when the theft of Geronimo’s skull was alleged to have taken place. Adding to the story’s veracity is the reported existence of a privately printed document authored by F.O. Matthiessen, a Skull & Bones member, describing the expedition and the recovery of Geronimo’s skull from the grave. Intriguingly, a sample of the document has been placed in a library at Harvard where, under an agreement between both Skull & Bones and the executors of Matthiessen’s estate, it remains unavailable to public view.

Anderson recruited his state senator, the late John McCain (MJF: who has a very interesting history himself) to pursue the matter in 1986 with then U.S. Vice-President George H W Bush. McCain reportedly arranged a meeting between Anderson and a number of Skull & Bones representatives including Jonathon Bush, the Vice-President’s brother. According to Anderson, the Skull & Bones members presented him with a skull they claimed to be his ancestor’s, offering it in exchange for a document preventing him and representatives of Skull & Bones from discussing the incident. Anderson refused, objecting to the gag order and not believing that the skull on offer was actually Geronimo’s. It should be noted that, like most U.S. states, Connecticut where Yale is located banned ownership of human remains except for specialised legal or professional purposes. It seems that Skull & Bones believes, as with “confiscating” license plates, that such a ban does not apply to them.

The controversy over Geronimo’s skull launched a number of similar charges regarding the Skull & Bones collection, including one that The Tomb housed the skull of legendary Mexican revolutionary leader Pancho Villa and that a child’s skull was also among those on display. Reynolds points out that hard evidence is lacking, not surprisingly you may think when you consider the charges and the nature of Skull & Bones. However, Reynolds make the further point that when compared with other activities of the Society, confiscated license plates and purloined skulls are petty concerns relative to espionage, drug smuggling, war profiteering (ref. Prescott Bush and his Bank’s links with the Nazi regime through Union Banking Corporation - Hitler’s Wall Street Financier) and interference in the internal affairs of sovereign nations and states, all involving Bonesmen. As he states, where these subjects are concerned, proof galore exists.

The Selection Process and Initiation Rituals

Reynolds states that the selection process for Skull & Bones is suitably dramatic. On a chosen night in April, Skull & Bones seniors arrive outside the rooms of each of the selected juniors, one by one, and pound loudly on the door. When the candidate opens the door, a Bonesman slams him on the shoulder and bellows “Skull & Bones – do you accept?

If the candidate accepts the invitation, a note wrapped in pink ribbon and sealed with black wax is handed over to him. Inside, along with the Skull & Bones mystical number 322, the message instructs the candidate to appear at The Tomb on initiation night and not to wear any metal (MJF: this reminds me of the instructions for the building of the Temple of Solomon, which included restrictions on the use of iron in either the preparation of the materials or the putting together of the building itself, as discussed in the transcripts).

Reynolds states that for most of its history, the initiation rites for Bonesmen remained among the best-kept secrets of the group, although bit by bit certain activities have come to light. The most enduring ritual obliged the initiate to relate the story of his life in two instalments. The first episode, which is delivered on a Thursday night, covered general aspects of the new member’s life, a narrative as bland or as entertaining as he chooses. The second episode, conducted on the following Sunday evening, required him to lie naked in a coffin while recounting details of his sexual history.

Variations on the ritual seem to have come and gone. During the years between the two world wars, initiates such as W. Averell Harriman and Time magazine founder Henry Luce reportedly underwent the sex-tales-in-a coffin rite of passage. However, in the late 1930’s, when future U.S. Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart was a Bonesman, seniors dressed in skeleton suits and howled at new candidates, whose initiation into the group required them to wrestle naked in a pit of mud. The reward for initiated Bonesmen may have made up for this humiliation for acceptance into the Society reportedly brought with it a $15,000 cash gift and, upon his marriage, a wedding gift of a good quality grandfather clock.

The ritual of lying in a coffin naked is in keeping with many of the initiation rites of the old mystery schools of the ancient world, which often involved the initiate staying for a time in a dark cave or similar environment before emerging to a new (enlightened) life in the light – this is also reflected in the underground initiation rites of the Knights Templar and in modern Freemasonry where the initiate is blindfolded (the origin of the term ‘hoodwinked’) and then led into the light of Masonry. The Skull & Bones Society may even have been channelling another earlier organisation whose rituals took place underground and who were renowned for their supposed debauchery and that is the 18th Century British Hellfire Club (which the American Founding Father, scientist and statesman Benjamin Franklin was a member of).

The rise of Prescott Bush (Yale class of 1917), no doubt helped by his Skull & Bones connections and his marriage to the daughter of George Herbert Walker (one of the wealthiest men in America and an associate of Averell Harriman, Yale class of 1913) deserves a post in its own right, which I may do later unless anyone else would like to take up the challenge.

The CIA connection

Apart from the apparent financial/political linkage among Skull & Bones members (as epitomised by Prescott Bush) that alarms so many people, most disturbingly, the Yale secret society has made probably its biggest impact on that most influential of all government-administered secret societies, the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (“CIA”). In some ways this reflects the way in which the Rosicrucians had a similar impact on the English Secret Service of Queen Elizabeth and her successor King James I, where the likes of Sir Francis Bacon (who eventually would control it as the King’s spymaster) and Dr. John Dee, both suspected of being senior Rosicrucians, played an important part as agents and cypher experts. Indeed, the connection between secret society members and the present successor to the Elizabethan Secret Service, the British Secret Intelligence Service, generally known as MI6, would still seem to be maintained in modern times when one discovers that so many of its agents have been Freemasons (e.g., Ian Fleming, Kim Philby, Guy Burgess and Donald Maclean – the latter three being members of the Cambridge University group known as the ‘Apostles’).

Reynolds produces a long list of Bonesmen associated with the U.S. intelligence community via the CIA and its forerunner, the Office of Strategic Services (OSS) during their careers. This list includes George Herbert Bush who would go on to head the CIA. As Reynolds points out, Bonesmen are bright, ambitious and, based upon their membership of the secret Yale society, eminently qualified to serve in a covert organisation like the CIA. Concerns arise, however, when layers of secrecy concealing many Bonesmen associations and activities are peeled away, revealing suggestions of extracurricular clandestine actions and evidence of remarkable coincidences.

One of these Reynolds notes is the way in which the Russell Trust Association, the official name of Skull & Bones ceased to exist, being replaced as the parent organisation of Skull & Bones by RTA Inc., a name that it assumed at 10.15 am on 14th April 1961. That is an interesting date and time since less than two hours later the CIA launched its self-financed and self-directed invasion of communist Cuba, which would result in the disastrous Bay of Pigs debacle. The CIA’s mastermind behind this folly was Richard Drain, a Bonesmen of the class of 1943. The Whitehouse liaison was McGeorge Bundy, Skull & Bones class of 1940 who worked closely with his brother William P Bundy, Skull & Bones class of 1939 who was at the State Department. Reynolds claims that these three together cooked up one of the greatest foreign misadventures in U.S. history, which led directly to the Cuban Missile Crisis, bringing the world the closest it has yet come to nuclear war.

No one has ever revealed the source of funding that enabled the invasion, but suspicion remains that it was the U.S. government via a CIA operations group. Reynolds suggests that without an existing Russell Trust Association, any record of a potential involvement of the Skull & Bones parent organisation as covert manager of the funds was neatly erased on the morning of the invasion. However, Reynolds notes that the individual who handle the paperwork on the name changeover and the incorporation of RTA was Howard Weaver, Skull & Bones class of 1945, who had conveniently retired from covert work at the CIA less than two years earlier.

Reynolds states that coincidences grow curiouser and curiouser. He alleges that George H.W. Bush may or may not have been working for the CIA in the years between 1958 and 1966, which encompasses the timing of the Bay of Pigs operation. His official record identifies him only as Chairman of the Board of Zapata Offshore Oil, a company headquartered in Houston, Texas. Reynolds makes the good point that without some experience in espionage work, Bush’s selection as CIA Director in 1974 seems strange to say the least. He argues that more than one reliable source has claimed that Zapata Offshore Oil was a cover for CIA operations. Even more curiously, Zapata just happened to be the CIA’s code name for the Bay of Pigs invasion. Just to add more spice to the conspiracy, two of the support vessels for the operation were identified as the Houston and the Barbara (the name of Bush’s wife). The latter designation is very intriguing since, during his World War II career as a U.S. Navy pilot, Bush named every aircraft he flew after his wife, Barbara Bush.

There is yet another coincidence involving the former President George H.W. Bush, which relates to the assassination of President John F Kennedy. One week after the assassination of the President, an official FBI document noted that information on possible Cuban exile involvement in the President’s death had been received “orally furnished to Mr. George Bush of the Central Intelligence Agency and Captain William Edwards of the Defense Intelligence Agency on November 23, 1963, by Mr. W.T. Forsyth of this Bureau.

When a reprint of this document appeared in the July 1988 issue of The Nation, on the cusp of Bush’s run for the U.S. presidency, the CIA quickly released a statement claiming that the “Mr. George Bush” referred to was not really the current candidate for the highest office in the USA but a different man with a similar name: George William Bush. Initially, this appeared to deflect suspicion about the presidential candidate’s hidden career as a spook (or spy). Unfortunately for Bush, George William Bush then emerged from obscurity to admit that he had once been employed by the CIA among other government offices he had worked for, but only as a low-level research and analyst clerk. In an affidavit, he then confirmed that having read the FBI memorandum, he could categorically state that he could not recognise the contents of the memorandum as information furnished to him orally or otherwise during his time at the CIA (indeed during his time at the CIA he had never received any oral communications from any government agency of any nature). He concluded that he could not possibly have been the Mr. George Bush of the CIA referred to in the memorandum.

This rebuttal leaves open the logical conclusion that George H.W. Bush was a CIA operative at a time when he claimed not to be. However, it is known that Bush also had, at the time, an alliance with Cuban exiles who were furious with Kennedy’s disassociation from the Bay of Pigs failure. Reynolds notes that this has led some observers to link Bush with both the Bay of Pigs fiasco and the 1963 assassination of President Kennedy, which conspiracy theorists still speculate about to this day.​

The Society Today

Reynolds notes that today whatever influence and impact Skull & Bones had beyond the Yale campus may now be waning. As he points out, the innermost secrets of Skull & Bones have been leaking through the stone walls of The Tomb for several years now. Indeed, perhaps the most important change of all occurred in 1992 when, after a bitter rear guard battle by old Bonesmen, the organisation eventually agreed to admit women (N.B. something the Freemasons will still not do). Moreover, the Society now also recruits blacks and Jews as potential members, something it would not entertain for the first 150 years of its existence. This development makes it doubtful whether any of the old lurid, sexual initiation rites are still practised. As Reynolds states, the male White Anglo-Saxon Protestant (WASP) contingent of American society is no longer as exclusive as it was a generation or two ago and secret societies on campus today are considered at best as outdated anachronisms. Indeed, he claims that in recent years more Yale juniors have declined an invitation to become a member of the Skull & Bones Society than have accepted it. In a day of hand-held instant messaging and social media platforms, global economics and tech-based fortunes, the networking arrangement that boosted the U.S. privileged and monied class even higher in the pecking order is not nearly as influential or necessary as it was. Incidentally, the same points can be made for other secret societies such as Freemasonry, where membership has been in steady decline for many decades now.

I would only add here that secret societies have come and gone over the centuries, as witness the Hellfire Club and the Round Table. Nevertheless, secret societies, which preserve esoteric and arcane knowledge, have a way of reinventing themselves under new guises to fit the social environment operating within each age. Hence, I would not rule out their continued existence through different organisations, guises and names. I would argue strongly that this is precisely what the Rosicrucians and the Osirians (assuming they are not one and the same group) have been doing successfully for thousands of years.​
Found this picture on the internet of The Tomb at Yale, the spiritual home of Skull and Bones.

skull-and-bones.jpg


Plus a short video on the organisation: http://www.nwotoday.com/images/videos/mp4/Skull-Bones.mp4
 
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I take you point and, as I said in my article, I did at first think it was a reference to Magna Carta myself, but I am not so sure now. My original instinct was that Laura's family name of 'Knight' might have suggested that one of her ancestors in the 14th Century was an English Knight Templar who, on the disbanding of the order, married producing offspring. I believe Laura is, or was, favourable to this theory. I am aware that the English Knights Templar applied a lot of pressure on King John of England to concede and sign the Baron's charter that has become known as Magna Carta. This document is seen as a landmark in English civil history as it created what were intended to be inalienable rights of the ordinary man at a time when the feudal system granted peasants few rights if any. For example, it gave a right for trial by jury when facing criminal charges, which is still the basis of the English and US criminal legal system (to be tried by your peers - '12 good men and true' from Shakespeare's Much Ado About Nothing, 1599).

However, if Magna meant 'Magna Grecia' and the stories and myths associated with that region of Italy, then it opens up a much older potential bloodline from which Laura may descend. When I saw the name 'Genus' (a mythical figure who begat giant sons) linked with the Cabiri gods (alien greys), this led me to think of the giants of history and the Orions' attempts to recreate the Nephilim. You may recall that Laura at the beginning of this thread wanted to investigate C's references to a special bloodline that she may be descended from. Hence, I thought it appropriate to explore this possible link. I could be completely wrong of course.

However, remember that the biblical Abraham fathered two separate bloodlines through Sarah {Nefertiti - herself a special large-skulled hybrid) and her daughter (and Akhenaten's too) Kore/Meritaten, who the C's say was the last of the Perseid bloodline. If Abraham or Abram was in fact 'Brahna' or the basis of the Celtic god Bran of the talking head, then we see that he too was most probably of a special bloodline according to the C's that included Nephilim genetics:
Session 19 April 1997:

Q: Am I correct in my assessment that the origin of the Grail stories was the story of the Head of Bran?

A: But what was the "origin" of Brahna?

Q: Well, from the way I am interpreting what I have found, I have two possibilities: One is the Celts from Kantek, and two: a Nephilim hybrid.

A: Could be one and the same.

Q: Well, from what you have said in prior sessions, these bloodlines can be of positive or negative orientation, a duality, and that they lead to super-secret power sources. Is that correct?

A: Well, the duality is existent concommitantly through all bloodlines, but in the so-called Celts, it is more pronounced, therefore, there are more vivid power cells and centres.


Note that the C's also spoke of the shared origins of the Essenes and Celts in the same session:

Q: Okay, I will keep digging. How can I find if there is going to be a connection between the Aryan/Jewish bloodline of Jesus and the Merovingian/Plantagenet bloodline? Does it exist?

A: Only to the extent of the shared origins of the Essenes and the Celts.


The similarity between the name Essene and the Esseseni (new grey-alien human hybrids) also made me wonder if the Essenes may have been an earlier generation of hybrids that enjoyed a shared origin with the Celts (was Abraham a Celt with Nephilim genetics and was Akhenaten descended from the ancient Essenes?). Esseseni also seems close etymologically speaking to "Essenoi”. Laurence Gardner noted the title “Essene” may likely have derived from the Aramaic word “Assaya”, meaning “physician,” (think also here of the Therapeutae of Alexandria in Egypt, who were noted physicians), which corresponded to the Greek word “Essenoi”.

And as to giants, the C's told us:

Q: Were the Celts the tall blonds known as the 'Sons of Anak,' who ruled over the Sumerians as described by Sitchen?

A: "Celts" are what remains of the original prototype.
[MJF: suggesting they became somewhat smaller.]

Laura also once mentioned the Celts in conjunction with the Trojans, who we know came from Eastern England but may have ended up as refugees in Asia Minor (did they become the Hittites?) after the fall of Troy:

Q: The chief thing I noticed about Arcadia was, the Arcadians were the enemies of the Trojans, they were the creators of the Trojan Horse - a huge deception... and the Celts are supposed to be the descendants of the refugees from Troy.
As to the Hittites, the C's suggested that they had had a genetic tweak made to them by STS forces:

Session 20 August 2001:

Q: All right, first question is, what is the origin of the Levites?
A: Hittites Moon Worshippers.
Q: Well, before the Hittites became Hittites, what were they?
A: Indo-europeans.
Q: What was the source of the Indo-europeans?
A: Aryan sub-race.
Q: Is there any other group the Aryans mixed with to produce the Indo-Europeans?
A: Fourth Density genetic tweak.
Q: Was Abraham a Levite?
A: Yes.
Q: Was Sarah Nefertiti?
A: Yes.
Q What was the reason for the strange skull shape of Nefertiti and her family?
A: Genetic tweak.
Q: Was this 4th density genetic tweak done by STS or STO?
A: STS


As you can see, the Hittites were Indo-Europeans like the Celts, but they would eventually spawn the Levites, who, as we know. were warrior monks who guarded and carried the Ark of the Covenant after the Exodus (or possibly even before).

The C's also suggested there may be some link between the Hittites and the Scythian Celts (such as Sargon the Great), even if they were not actually one and the same people:​

Q: (L) Were the Hittites a genetically altered group of Scythians?
A: Close.


I hope to have more to say on this issue in an upcoming post.

Finally, the C's also made a strange comment about the bloodlines of those involved with the Nordic Covenant, which may be the special bloodline we are concerned with (Odin's Children?)​

Session 2 January 1999:

Q: Well, let me get to some of these other questions. Previously you said that the central thing about the Nordic Covenant was that there were bloodlines that extend off the planet. From what I understand, all humans on the planet have bloodlines that extend off the planet. In what sense did you mean this about the Nordic Covenant; that the bloodlines extend off the planet?

A: Not all so recent, not all so “pure.”

Q: In the sense of recent, how recent do you mean?


A: Speculate, using your transcripts.

"Not all so pure" would seem to suggest the kind of genetic tampering the Cabiri (Greys) have got up to and the genetic tweaks mentioned above concerning the Hittites.​

Much food for thought. I would certainly appreciate hearing people's views and theories on these points.
One question if you had the Grail, what use would you give it? What use would it be? If that pure crystal skull or the head of Osiris were buried in France, what could you do with it? put it in a museum? Or it could look good as an ornament on a shelf and, if it is a talking head, it can be used to chat or give good advice.
For the Greeks the soul resided in the head and the Goddess Athena would be born from the head of Zeus.
If that head were like the body of a person, the body needs something to function and who animates that body would be the soul, therefore that skull could have a connection with the Mer-ka-ba in another state outside of this reality and there it would be its invisibility but that can also be a disadvantage if it is a STO device how could someone SAS get it? Unless your integrated person here is with the person there who would become consciousness and the only trips of consciousness that I know of as close to STO would be without the will of wishful thinking like going to take a nap that can take you there.
There is a phrase in the Titan Thanos movie that says "
How do I appreciate it? Because now I know what to do. I'm going to tear this universe apart until there's not an atom left. And then, with the gems they collected for me, I will create a new one, full of life, that will not know what no longer exists. You will see only what has been given to you, a grateful universe.

In all my years of conquest, violence, slaughter, it was never personal. But I'll tell you something. What I'm going to do to your exasperating and stubborn planet, I'm going to enjoy it like you can't imagine."
 
One question if you had the Grail, what use would you give it? What use would it be? If that pure crystal skull or the head of Osiris were buried in France, what could you do with it? put it in a museum? Or it could look good as an ornament on a shelf and, if it is a talking head, it can be used to chat or give good advice.
For the Greeks the soul resided in the head and the Goddess Athena would be born from the head of Zeus.
If that head were like the body of a person, the body needs something to function and who animates that body would be the soul, therefore that skull could have a connection with the Mer-ka-ba in another state outside of this reality and there it would be its invisibility but that can also be a disadvantage if it is a STO device how could someone SAS get it? Unless your integrated person here is with the person there who would become consciousness and the only trips of consciousness that I know of as close to STO would be without the will of wishful thinking like going to take a nap that can take you there.
There is a phrase in the Titan Thanos movie that says "
How do I appreciate it? Because now I know what to do. I'm going to tear this universe apart until there's not an atom left. And then, with the gems they collected for me, I will create a new one, full of life, that will not know what no longer exists. You will see only what has been given to you, a grateful universe.

In all my years of conquest, violence, slaughter, it was never personal. But I'll tell you something. What I'm going to do to your exasperating and stubborn planet, I'm going to enjoy it like you can't imagine."
The C's have suggested that the Grail or Merkaba has been put to many uses over the millenia. Obviously, one they have told us about was its use in transporting (teleporting?) a group of Kentakkians to Earth prior to the destruction of their planet. It also seems to have been used for the manifestation of things (I will have more to say about this particular function in a subsequent post), including food. Medieval and earlier commentators also seem to have linked it to healing, rejuvenation and even bodily resurrection. If you go back through this thread and to the early transcripts, you will see that these attributes and properties of the Grail seem to be shared with the TDARM the C's say is buried on Oak Island. This is one of the reasons I have posted updates on the treasure hunt currently being undertaken by the Lagina brothers on Oak Island.

Although the Grail would seem to be a standalone object or artefact, it may well be capable of operating with technology or other artefacts. Indeed, if it was viewed as the Head of Osiris by the Egyptians, then it has been shown in some of their wall frescoes and other illustrations atop a pole on the Boat of a Million Years - which the C's say was a time machine. Although it may require an attuned (preferably STO orientated) human to operate it, this does not rule out that it can be used as a lensing or tuning device in conjunction with high-tech machinery, as William Henry, among others, believes. Many ancient alien advocates believe that places like Stonehenge and the Great Pyramid of Giza may once have harboured sophisticated technology and equipment that was long ago removed. I have hinted at this in a previous post about what appeared to be a Sumerian story about an ancient battle of the Anunnaki gods over the Great Pyramid complex, where various precious stones and gems were removed by the victors and either smashed, repurposed or hidden. Perhaps some of these stones were subsequently rediscovered by the likes of Pharaoh Narmer (Solomon) and the much later Thutmose IV, a pharaoh of the 18th Dynasty who was Akhenaten's grandfather, who put them to new uses.

Such rediscoveries may have included the Grail itself. We know Nefertiti stole the Grail from her husband, Akhenaten and gave it to Abraham/Moses. However, the Grail is also described as a "Mother Stone", which may suggest it can be used in conjunction with other stones or crystals as some sort of a mother board, using computer jargon here. Is it just coincidence that the Israelite High Priest (Cohen Hagadol) wore an Ephod or breastplate, which had four rows of mounted stones (the Hoshen Stones):

“And you shall set it with four rows of mounted stones; the first row: a ruby, an emerald, and a topaz. The second row: a carbuncle, a sapphire, and a quartz crystal. The third row: a jacinth, an agate, and an amethyst. The fourth row: a chrysolite, an onyx, and an opal. These stones shall be placed in gold settings. The stones shall contain the names of the twelve children of Israel, one for each of the twelve stones; each one’s name shall be engraved as on a signet ring, to represent the twelve tribes.” (Ex. 28: 17-21)

Were these stones used in conjunction with the Grail as a means of tuning it for communications with the Lizard beings and for other possible functions involving the Grail? Did the author Graham Phillips and his two American friends find some of these breastplate stones during their treasure hunt around the old Templar estate of Temple Herdewyke in the county of Warwickshire in central England, which is only ten miles from what would later be Shakespeare’s birthplace of Stratford-upon-Avon (for more on Shakespeare see my next post on Sir Walter Raleigh). as described in Phillip's book The Templars and the Ark of the Covenant.
S
ee The Ark of the Covenant 1

You asked the question:​
If that pure crystal skull or the head of Osiris were buried in France, what could you do with it? put it in a museum?
Well, I can assure you that if the human STS forces (the real Rosicrucians and not AMORC etc.) find it first, assuming they can, then it will certainly not be placed in a museum for public display. I would suggest they have other purposes lined up for it.

As to Thanos and the Avengers films, they were certainly good entertainment but he did come across as a deranged psychopath and megalomaniac. Who knows, the films could have been the product of a bleed through or the work of Thor's Pantheon. Afterall, Thor, the Norse god of thunder, did have a major role in it. :lol:
 
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Sir Walter Raleigh and the School of Light

Sir Walter Raleigh and Sir Francis Bacon were two of the most famous Englishmen of the Elizabethan era who, on the face of it, seemed to share much in common. They both served at the courts of Queen Elizabeth I and King James I; they were both trained lawyers at the Inns of Court in London; they both spent time in France as young men – Raleigh fighting for three years with the French Huguenots and Bacon fulfilling an important diplomatic mission; they were both involved in the early exploration and colonisation of North America, they both knew and worked with the magus Doctor John Dee; they were both at the centre of schools or circles of learning; and both men were knights of the realm.

However, these two men would experience very different fates. One would go on to become Lord Chancellor of England and would be lauded as a polymath and the instaurator of modern science, the other would die a traitor’s death. One would help to found the first successful English colony in what is today the United States of America, whilst the other would see his American colony disappear without trace. Although fate can certainly be fickle, could there perhaps have been a hidden, unseen influence operating behind their lives, an influence that could even be said to be other worldly?

We have looked at Sir Francis Bacon’s life before on this thread and his possible links to the burial of the TDARM on Oak Island and I hope to expand on this subsequently. However, I wish in this article to concentrate more on Bacon’s rivalry with Sir Walter Raleigh, a rivalry that may even have cost William Shakespeare his life. I would like to start by looking closely at the life and times of Sir Walter Raleigh.​

Sir Walter Raleigh

As Wikipedia informs us:

Sir Walter Raleigh (c. 1552 – 29 October 1618) was an English statesman, soldier, writer and explorer. One of the most notable figures of the Elizabethan era, he played a leading part in the English colonisation of North America, suppressed rebellion in Ireland. helped defend England against the Spanish Armada and held political positions under Elizabeth I.

To English schoolchildren he is perhaps best remembered by a story that when he was a young Elizabethan courtier, he once took off his cape to lay it in front of the Queen, so that she would not have to step into a puddle. The story is most likely a fiction, but it does serve to illustrate the outgoing flamboyance of the man.

He was the younger half-brother of Sir Humphrey Gilbert and a cousin of Sir Richard Grenville (who was a privateer, an explorer and a participant in the colonisation of America). Curiously, by some strange coincidence, both men would die at sea off the Azores. Sir Humphrey Gilbert (1539 – 1583) was, like his cousin Grenville and half-brother Raleigh, an English adventurer, explorer and pioneer of the English colonial empire in North America, as were his brothers, Sir John Gilbert and Adrian Gilbert. More importantly perhaps for us, Sir Humphrey Gilbert was also a close acquaintance of John Dee and even sat in with him on some of Dee’s scrying or channelling sessions with Edward Kelley (they also shared an interest in alchemy). Let us not forget that John Dee was, amongst other things, a celebrated navigator (being a personal friend of Gerardus Mercator one of the foremost map makers or cartographers of the period) who would help in the planning of exploratory sea voyages to the North American coast. In keeping with Dee’s designs to establish an English empire in North America, Gilbert would take possession of Newfoundland for the English crown on 5 August 1583. On the voyage back, however, he would drown at sea. Nevertheless, this shows that Raleigh and his extended family were heavily involved in the exploration and colonisation of North America (See more on this below).

In 1569, Raleigh left for France to serve with the Huguenots in the French religious civil wars. In 1572, he was registered as an undergraduate at Oriel College in Oxford, but he left a year later without a degree. Raleigh proceeded to finish his education in the Inns of Court. In 1575, he was admitted to the Middle Temple, having previously been a member of Lyon’s Inn, one of the Inns of Chancery. Bizarrely, at his trial in 1603, he stated that he had never studied law. Perhaps he shared a similar legal education to a recent president of the United States of America, who supposedly studied law at a certain university, but it seems no law students who were graduates of that university at the time can remember him ever being there or attending courses.​

Sir Walter Raleigh, the School of Night and the Red Cross Knight

Although Raleigh is more famous as an explorer, soldier and adventurer, he was also an accomplished man of letters, being both a writer and a poet. His poetry contains strong personal treatments of themes such as love, loss, beauty, and time. Most of his poems, which were written in a plain, unornamented style (in stark contrast to the more florid and elaborate styles of other English poets of the period like Edmund Spenser and John Donne), are short lyrics that were often inspired by actual events. However, it is his membership of what has come to be known as ‘The School of Night’ that most interests us here.

The ‘School of Night’ is the modern name for a group of men centred on Sir Walter Raleigh that was once referred to in 1592 as the "School of Atheism". The group included poets and scientists such as Christopher Marlowe, George Chapman, Thomas Nashe, Matthew Rodon, Sir George Carey, the Early of Derby (i.e., Lord Strange - who would die in mysterious circumstances after the Hesketh affair – see earlier posts), Thomas Harriot (MJF: a much overlooked polymath who made a number of key scientific breakthroughs, particularly in the fields of astronomy and mathematics and was also an alchemist. He acted in the capacity of the school’s master), Sir Francis Drake, Henry Percy, the 9th Earl of Northumberland (Laura’s ‘Wizard Earl’) and supposedly John Dee. They were also called the ‘Dragon Men’ - with all the possible connotations involved in such a description. There is in fact no firm evidence that these men were all known to each other, but speculation about their connections has featured prominently in writings about the Elizabethan era. The name "School of Night" is a modern appellation based around the theory that the school was a clandestine intellectual coterie. It is alleged that each of these men studied science, philosophy religion and all were suspected of atheism. Atheism at that time was a crime nearly the equivalent of treason, since to be against the church was, ipso facto, to be against the monarch, who in England was the head of the Church of England. At a dinner party in 1593, Raleigh entered into a heated discussion about religion with a Reverend Ralph Ironsides. The argument later gave rise to charges of atheism against Raleigh, though the charges were subsequently dismissed. However, atheism was also a name for anarchy, and was a charge frequently brought against the politically troublesome.

As the American writer and researcher Steven Sora states, although all these men worked towards the same goals, they were not necessarily united. Infighting over leadership, land and favours from the Queen and later King brought them to betrayal and even to murder. Collectively, however, they succeeded in their primary aim, which was the colonisation of the New World. The Spanish may have sailed for gold and silver, the French for furs but the English came to America to re-create Avalon and establish the New Atlantis (which was the name of Sir Francis Bacon’s last posthumously published work). Looking at America today, one might conclude that they succeeded. However, let us not forget that when the old Atlantis perished, it did so, according to Plato, as an evil empire.

As to the School of Night, Sora notes that they would meet at Raleigh’s estate where Raleigh, as its central figure, had his finger on the pulse of the new ideas that were emerging at the time. Sora also points out that although to many Raleigh would seem to be more of a swashbuckler, he is credited as having written a book (he had plenty of time to do so whilst he was incarcerated for 13 long years in the Tower of London) The History of the World, complete apparently with references to and discussion about Phoenician gods (MJF: which may be a bit of a red flag for us). In it, he wrote that the stars were the determinant of man’s fate. He also believed that magic was a form of worship as well as believing in the importance of the god Dagon (aka Triton). One could see why the Reverend Ralph Ironsides may have had problems with Raleigh’s religious views, which would have been equally unpalatable to Catholics and Protestants alike. According to Raleigh’s mythology, the goddess Derceta was impregnated by a young man and left her baby by a lake. The baby was changed by the goddess Venus into a fish. Dagon was, of course, the fish-man god worshipped throughout Mesopotamia by the Assyrians and by the Philistines. He can be compared in some ways to Merovee, the mythical ancestor of the Merovingians. Although the sources for this work are unknown, it is obvious by its contents that Raleigh was steeped in esoteric thought. which might suggest a link to the Rosicrucians.

To support this link, Sora states that Raleigh was aware of the Rosicrucian enlightenment and fancied himself as the ‘Red Cross Knight’. The Red Cross Knight is the protagonist of the first book of Edmund Spenser’s The Faerie Queene, his most distinctive feature being his shield which features a red Christian cross, which is the origin of his name. The Red Cross Knight is in reality a version of St. George (a real religious figure with deep esoteric underpinnings), who, according to legend, slayed a dragon. Like the legendary St. George, the Red Cross Knight does eventually slay a dragon that is terrorizing his lover, the Lady Una, and her family at their castle. As his shield suggests, the Red Cross Knight embodies the virtue of holiness and though he can be temporarily misled by tricks or foiled by strong adversaries, he always triumphs in the end. However, the red cross also has a deep significance for the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry in which the 18th degree is called ‘Knight of the Rose Croix’. And then, of course, there are the Rosicrucians for whom the rosy cross is their key symbol. Finally, I would mention that a character called the Red Knight also appears in Wolfram von Eschenbach’s Parzival (a classic Grail story), where he is killed by the young Parzival who then takes his armour and horse.

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The Split in 1592

Steve Sora in his book, Rosicrucian America delves into an issue we have touched on before in this thread and that is, who was really the author of the works of William Shakespeare? I don’t want to run through the list of candidates and the arguments for and against each of them* here but would instead just mention that Sora notes in his book that something very dramatic happened in the year 1592.

*Sora seems to take the view that Bacon, Essex, the Earl of Oxford, and others collaborated together to produce the works of Shakespeare. I am sympathetic to that view.

He claims that at this time Sir Walter Raleigh’s circle would split into two factions. On one side were Raleigh and Hariot and a handful of scientists, as well as Henry Percy, the Earl of Northumberland. On the other side is what would become known as the Essex Circle. The Essex Circle included: Sir Francis Bacon and his brother Anthony; Henry Wriothesley – the Earl of Southampton; Edward de Vere – the Earl of Oxford (another prime candidate for the real Shakespeare); Roger Manners – the Earl of Rutland; the playwright (and spy) Christopher Marlowe; as well as its central figure, Robert Devereux, the Earl of Essex. After inheriting Leicester House, Essex changed its name to Essex House and his estate became home to a circle of intellectuals who could freely speak about science and religion and about government and philosophy (MJF: One can perhaps see in this the seeds of the later ‘Invisible College’ that Bacon would help to inspire, which in turn would become the basis for the Royal Society instituted in the reign of King Charles II).

Sora rightly points out that Elizabeth I’s court was a snake pit and Raleigh’s success had drawn the wrath of others who would be happy to see him removed, primarily Essex, who was one of the Queen’s favourites and rumoured to be her lover. Essex could be brash, impetuous, and dangerous, traits that would eventually cost him his life.

Bacon and the Essex Circle did not appreciate the advances of Sir Francis Drake and Raleigh within Elizabeth’s court. Bacon wanted a New Atlantis based on philosophical ideals. However, as Sora points out, Raleigh, despite his attempts from the 1580’s onwards to settle Virginia, did not always share in the higher ideals espoused by freethinkers such as Bacon, and Drake was merely a pirate who enjoyed raiding the Spanish Main for whatever could be stolen. This distinction in approach could in part explain the C’s strange question to Laura in the session dated 21 February 1998: “Is Beechnut a company?and might also explain why the Roanoke colony sponsored by Raleigh was to prove a failure (see more on this below). Could external forces have intervened to ensure that it was Bacon’s vision that was ultimately realised and not Raleigh’s?

In trying to effect Raleigh’s downfall, his enemies regularly told the Queen that Raleigh’s School of Night was a School of Atheism, which may not have been far removed from the truth given Raleigh’s beliefs as described above. This faction had great influence and much of what they did was done behind the scenes (MJF: Could we be seeing the Rosicrucians at work here?). Sora states that Raleigh knew he had enemies, but his suspicions would on more than one occasion cause him to blame the wrong person.

One particular enemy of Raleigh, who was a close friend of Sir Francis Bacon and part of his intellectual circle, was Edward de Vere, the Earl of Oxford, who was a favourite of the Queen. Oxford first met Raleigh when the latter was introduced to court in 1580. Oxford especially loathed Raleigh’s friend, Sir Philip Sydney. Raleigh and Sydney’s links went back to Paris when both men, whilst in the company of Sir Francis Walsingham (the Queen’s spymaster), witnessed the St. Bartholomew’s Day Massacre of French Protestants in April 1572. Oxford would soon find out that Raleigh was reporting to Walsingham. Whether Raleigh knew it or not at the time, he had made a great enemy of Oxford.
Did Essex’s Circle use Shakespeare as a Cover

Sora muses how such a small group of men could play some of the greatest roles in exploring and colonising the New World whilst at the same time playing an equally influential role in the development of English literature. However, he points out that although these men could meet together and speak freely on religious, philosophical and political topics, few of them would dare to publish under their own name. Moreover, at that time it was deemed completely unacceptable for men of noble standing and political high office to stoop to publishing plays and poetry. Hence, it would prove useful to have someone to act as a cover for publishing their works. This was where William Shakespeare came in.

According to Sora, it was the Earl of Southampton who first saw the opportunity. Thus, when Essex wished to see his sonnets to young Henry Wriothesley (MJF: many of these men were closet bisexuals, which probably included Sir Francis Bacon too), put into print, they were deemed the work of Shakespeare. When Oxford wished to fashion new iterations of tales he had read during his grand tours of Continental Europe, he could publish as “William Shakespeare”. When the Earl of Rutland was posted by Queen Elizabeth to Elsinore Castle in Denmark, he might have returned with enough ideas to enable a new version of the age-old tale of Hamlet to be produced by Shakespeare. The same was true of Sir Francis Bacon who in understanding that his political works threatened to ignite the Queen’s wrath, realised that a pen name (a ‘nomme de plume’) could save his neck.

Now the group had a front man in William Shakespeare, they were free to write and say whatever they wanted since Shakespeare would act as their paid decoy. Bearing in mind that playwrights earned very little in the Elizabethan age (and there was at that time no copyright in literary works to protect writers’ interests), making Shakespeare the richest man in Stratford was a mere trifle for men as wealthy as the noblemen in Essex’s circle. As Sora points out, historical works with political overtones offered little to an author when weighed against the risk but Essex would lose his life for backing the production of Richard II – where in comparison the author, reputed to be Shakespeare, was not even reprimanded.​

Shakespeare’s Works used as a Weapon against Raleigh

During this time frame, two works attributed to Shakespeare were published, which contained scarcely veiled jibes at Raleigh and his School or Night. The first was The Rape of Lucrece loosely based on the expulsion of the Tarquin dynasty from Rome, as recounted by the Roman historian Livy in his The History of Rome. The point of publishing the tale at this time was to identify ‘Tarquin the Proud’ as ‘Raleigh the Proud’. The underlying message of The Rape of Lucrece was that, like Tarquin, Raleigh would soon be expelled from London.

The second work was the satirical comedy Love’s Labour’s Lost. It appears to be exposing the School of Night, given that Henry Percy, the Earl of Northumberland as the King of Navarre is depicted as the leader, and his lords take vows not to look at women for three years so they can advance their studies without distraction. Raleigh was also caricaturised in the play through the character Don Adriano de Armado, whilst the character of Holofernes can be identified with the astronomer Thomas Hariot. Other attending lords in the play who can be identified with friends of Raleigh include Lord Strange, the Earl of Derby (Ferdinando Stanley) and Sir George Carey. Dame Frances Yates, a noted English historian of the Renaissance who wrote books on esoteric history, was one of those who noted that a large portion of the play was given over to mocking Raleigh, Hariot and Chapman et al. and she suggested that it was their absorption in the field of new astronomy at the School of Night that influenced Shakespeare (the Essex Circle) to write the satire. In fairness, Essex’s Circle also included people like Bacon who took an interest in the new astronomy too. Below are a few lines from the play, which serve to illustrate Yates’ point:​

These earthly godfathers of heavens lights,

That give a name to every fixed star,

Have no more profit of their shining knights.

Than those that walk and wot not what they are.


Raleigh, as a proud man, was highly sensitive to criticism and when his enemies likened the School of Night to a School of Atheism, he may well have blamed William Shakespeare, not realising that Shakespeare was merely a front man for the literary work. However, Sora suggests there may have been another reason for Raleigh to seek revenge against Shakespeare.​

Raleigh’s Secret Marriage and Imprisonment

Whilst at the peak of his career at the court of Queen Elizabeth, having been knighted in 1585, Raleigh entered into a secret marriage in 1591 with his lover Elizabeth Throckmorton, who was a lady-in-waiting to the Queen, after she had become pregnant. Queen Elizabeth had insisted that all her ladies-in-waiting remain unmarried, and Raleigh was aware that, even for a man of his standing, he had no chance of changing the Queen’s mind over this. The pregnant Elizabeth made her excuses to the Queen and left London for her family home at Coughton Court, just outside the small town of Alcester. Halfway between Stratford (Shakespeare’s hometown) and Alcester lay the original home of Mary Arden, Shakespeare’s mother, who happened to be related to the Throckmorton family. The extended family kept an important secret which was that Shakespeare’s grandfather, father and mother were secretly Roman Catholics (at a time of acute Catholic persecution). Sora ponders whether the Shakespeare-Arden family may have let slip the secret marriage of Elizabeth to Raleigh. Although Elizabeth resumed her duties to the Queen after giving birth (sadly the child would die of plague in October 1592), the following year the unauthorised marriage was discovered, and the Queen ordered Raleigh to be imprisoned and Elizabeth dismissed from court. Both were imprisoned in the Tower of London in June 1592. However, Raleigh would be released from prison in August 1592 to manage a recently returned expedition and an attack on the Spanish coast. Afterwards he was sent back to the Tower, but by early 1593 he had been released again, whereupon he became a member of Parliament. However, the damage to Raleigh’s reputation and standing in court would be long lasting and it could be argued that he never really recovered from this episode.

Whether Shakespeare’s family had any role in divulging Raleigh’s secret marriage to Elizabeth and her pregnancy is impossible to prove at this distance in time but, if they had let slip the secret, then it would certainly be a good reason for Raleigh to seek revenge on Shakespeare. Whether Shakespeare suspected that Raleigh blamed him for the leak and might wish to seek revenge cannot be known now but Sora makes the interesting point that Shakespeare drew up his last will and testament shortly after Raleigh’s release from prison. Was this just mere coincidence?​

Raleigh’s Second Imprisonment

It would be a long climb for Raleigh back into Queen Elizabeth’s favour, but Raleigh’s situation would gradually improve over time. However, his enemies still included Francis Bacon and the Earl of Southampton, who by this time were backing voyages to the New World. Sora claims that they were threatened by Raleigh’s fame and by his role in the settling of the first permanent English colony in Virginia. This may be true, but we should not forget that Francis Bacon also played a prominent role in the genesis of that colony and wrote the Virginia Company’s constitution. However, there can be little doubt that Bacon’s influence over the colony increased after Raleigh’s second imprisonment under King James I (see more below), which would last for 13 long years. How great an influence Bacon played on the evolution of what would become the United States of America can be measured perhaps by the statement of Thomas Jefferson (a Freemason and suspected Rosicrucian), the third President of the United States, who wrote:​

"Bacon, [John] Locke and [Sir Isaac] Newton. whose pictures I will trouble you to have copied for me: and as I consider them as the three greatest men that have ever lived, without any exception, and as having laid the foundation of those superstructures which have been raised in the Physical & Moral sciences.

When Queen Elizabeth died in 1603, James Stuart, the king of Scotland ascended the English throne as King James I. Various Catholic plots against him were uncovered. And although Raleigh had fought against the Spanish for decades, he was implicated in one of these plots (the ‘Bye Plot’) against the new king. He would be convicted on trumped up charges and recanted testimony, as a result of which he was imprisoned.

The Bye Plot was a conspiracy by English Catholics to kidnap James I and force him to convert to Catholicism or at least to put Catholics in powerful positions (James’s mother, Mary Queen of Scots, had been an ardent Catholic). The plot, whose ringleader was a priest, William Watson, had been poorly planned and was actually reported by English Jesuits for fear that things would get worse for them if the plan proceeded. Watson and two others were arrested and tortured into confessing and were executed for their roles. However, Watson had implicated George Brooke, with whom he had discussed the plot. Brooke was arrested and tortured as well and would be executed in December 1603. Unfortunately, he may have cast suspicion on his older brother Henry Brooke, who as Lord Cobham was a friend of Robert Cecil, William Cecil’s (Lord Burghley) son, who may have felt threatened by both Bacon and Raleigh. As it so happened, Cobham had been in touch with Spanish agents and had a much more serious plot in the works. This came to be known as the ‘Main Plot’, a conspiracy by English courtiers to remove King James from the English throne and replace him with his cousin Lady Arbella Stuart. As an orphan Arbella had lived in Hardwick Hall in Derbyshire with her grandmother, the formidable and wealthy Bess of Hardwick, who had married George Talbot, 6th Earl of Shrewsbury, the owner of Alton Castle, on whose estate would later be built Alton Towers. Perhaps there was more going on behind the scenes then we realise since a dispatch from Bess of Hardwick to Lord Burghley, dated 21 September 1592 records that from early 1589 or thereabouts "one Morley ... attended on Arbell and read to her … [over] the space of three years and a half". There has been speculation that Morley was in fact the poet Christopher Marlowe, whose name was sometimes spelt that way. If true, this would be intriguing since Marlowe (another candidate for the real Shakespeare) was reputed to have been a member of Raleigh’s School of Night and was known to have been a spy in the service of Sir Francis Walsingham. He would be killed in strange circumstances on 30 May 1593 when at an English tavern of ill repute, he got involved in an argument over a bill and was murdered. One theory claims that the murder was initiated by Sir Walter Raleigh and yet another claims that Marlowe was not killed but hustled off to Italy where he continued his writing, which was passed on to Shakespeare to claim as his own. If Morley was Marlowe, then it might explain why he ceased reading to her after three and a half years.

Part of the Main Plot involved taking delivery of a large sum of money from Spain and carrying it through the British Channel Island of Jersey, where Raleigh was the governor, to England. It transpired that this was Raleigh’s only real connection with the plot. Indeed, it defies reason and logic why Raleigh should get involved, as he had fought against Catholic Spain for decades and had regularly raided their ships. Why would the Spanish trust him with control over their money? Moreover, Raleigh was an ardent Protestant who detested Catholicism and would have much preferred a Protestant king to sit upon the throne of England, even if he were a Scotsman.

Unfortunately for Raleigh, Cobham named him as a co-conspirator even though there is no other evidence for it. It did not matter that Cobham later recanted his testimony against Raleigh, as Raleigh was still imprisoned. Raleigh's trial began on 17 November 1603, and he conducted his own defence. The chief evidence against him was the signed and sworn confession of his friend Henry Brooke (Cobham). Raleigh repeatedly requested that Cobham be called to testify. but the tribunal refused to allow Cobham to testify and be cross-examined. Although Raleigh was convicted, King James spared his life. Since then, Raleigh's trial has been regularly cited as influential in establishing a common law right to confront one’s accusers in court. Given the legal irregularities involved in Raleigh’s trial (when Cobham was not allowed to give oral testimony in court under cross-examination, his evidence should have been viewed as ‘hearsay’, as Raleigh correctly argued), one can only conclude that the trial and conviction was a “stitch-up” to prevent Raleigh from wielding any influence at the court of the new king and over future colonisation plans for the New World. Could the hidden hand of history have deliberately moved against Raleigh?

However, this is where the story takes a strange turn since Cobham and his family had been, like Raleigh and his circle, the butt of Shakespeare’s jokes in The Merry Wives of Windsor and in a performance of Henry IV. Thus, both Cobham and Raleigh were victimised in works attributed to William Shakespeare. Raleigh might have blamed the secretly Catholic Arden-Shakespeare family for making him a scapegoat. According to Sora, he had suspected them of the same thing in the past.​

The Mermaid Club

Before looking at the circumstances of Shakespeare’s death, I would like to explore the possibility that Raleigh may have met with Shakespeare at some stage in London before his fall from grace and imprisonment. Aside from the School of Night, Raleigh may also have been responsible for creating another salon of intellectuals under his leadership. Although controversial, there are historians and literary scholars who believe that Raleigh was responsible for establishing at the Mermaid Tavern located in Cheapside, London what is sometimes referred to as the ‘Mermaid Club’ or the ‘Friday Club’, since the Tavern had an entrance on Friday Street and the Club customarily met on the first Friday of every month. These gatherings of gentlemen at the tavern were essentially those of members of a literary club (comparable perhaps centuries later to C.S. Lewis’s and Tolkien’s Inklings Club in Cambridge). However, Raleigh may not have been just the founder of the club but an active participant too. These meetings at the Mermaid Tavern were attended by well known playwrights, authors and poets including Ben Jonson, William Shakespeare (whose Blackfriars Theatre was nearby), Francis Beaumont, John Fletcher, John Seldon, Robert Bruce Compton, Richard Martin and John Donne amongst others. According to some commentators, it was a status symbol among the literary circle to gather at such taverns in the heart of London at that time.

The question we need to ask here is whether Shakespeare ever attended such literary gatherings at the Mermaid, particularly if he was a front man for the Essex Circle, the rivals of the Raleigh Circle. There is no doubt that such gatherings took place at the Mermaid because contemporaries like Thomas Middleton and the poet John Keats wrote about them. Moreover, the poet John Milton (famous for Paradise Lost) mentions both Ben Jonson and Shakespeare as frequenters of the Boar’s Head Tavern and The Mermaid – Milton’s father was also a shareholder in the Blackfriars Theatre, a Shakespearean enterprise. Alan and Veronica Palmer in their Who’s Who in Shakespeare’s England relate that:​

Shakespeare has been the subject of much legend, near contemporaries relating anecdotes of genial rivalry, for tales of drinking parties at The Mermaid and just before Shakespeare’s death tended to include the presence of Jonson as a matter of course”.

Furthermore, the Mermaid Tavern was owned by William Johnson at that time who was supposedly an acquaintance of Shakespeare. This point can be proven by the fact that The Blackfriars Theatre deed of agreement with Shakespeare’s signature upon it was attested and seconded by none other than William Johnson. It is unlikely that Johnson would have attested Shakespeare’s signature unless he knew him well, which suggests that Shakespeare must have frequented the Mermaid Tavern on a regular basis when Johnson was the landlord.

Thus, it seems Shakespeare was a regular at the Mermaid Tavern and may well, therefore, have participated in the gatherings of the Mermaid or Friday Club. If that is the case, he may well have met with Raleigh before the latter’s imprisonment. However, the big takeaway from all this is that Shakespeare and Ben Jonson were evidently established drinking pals. Indeed, Ben Jonson would prove to be one of the last people Shakespeare would ever have a drink with.​

Shakespeare’s Death
While Sir Walter Raleigh was languishing in gaol, his literary nemesis, William Shakespeare, had settled down in provincial Stratford-upon-Avon playing the role of a small-town businessman. A great deal of water had passed under the bridge since Raleigh had been incarcerated. This had also allowed Shakespeare to lose touch with those he had known as a “player” (stage actor) but evidently not Ben Jonson.

However, what Shakespeare did not know was that Jonson had become the single best friend that Sir Walter Raleigh had, visiting him often in the Tower (although Thomas Harriot would also frequently visit Raleigh in gaol and was reputedly with him the night before his execution). Shakespeare may also not have been aware that Jonson had become his most outspoken critic. Indeed, Sora alleges that the full extent of the enmity that both Jonson and Raleigh felt for Shakespeare would never be known to the Bard.

On 23 April 1616, Jonson and Shakespeare would meet in Stratford to celebrate Shakespeare’s birthday in the company of another famous poet of the day, Michael Drayton. Besides the Mermaid Tavern connection, Shakespeare and his company of actors had performed Jonson’s plays years before. It should be noted that Jonson was somewhat unusual for a poet in that he had started his working life as a bricklayer before becoming a soldier fighting in the Lowlands (Flanders and the Netherlands). He had therefore killed men before, including in hand-to-hand conflict and through duelling (which was against the law). He also had a reputation for excessive drinking and street fighting for which he had been arrested and imprisoned on four separate occasions.

What happened on the night of 23 April 1616 has not been recorded in any detail. It is said though that Shakespeare “drank too hard” and “died of a fever”. As Sora points out, since a night of overeating and drinking rarely results in death*, the tragic result may indicate that he was poisoned. Since no one else at their table was poisoned, it may have been the case, therefore, that he had been deliberately targeted by Jonson.

*This is not necessarily true as gluttony and overindulgence can induce a heart attack or, if one had an existing serious gastric ulcer condition, it might lead to a ruptured ulcer that would cause a fever due to septicaemia, which usually results in a quick and painful death without prompt medical intervention of a kind that was unavailable in that age.

It is curious that Shakespeare had only just drawn up his will the previous month and yet a month later he was dead after dinner with Jonson and his pals. It could be indicative though that Shakespeare knew he had a serious, possibly untreatable, malady and he was not long for this world. However, if he was poisoned by Jonson, this might suggest that the long arm of Raleigh vengeance had reached out to take revenge on Shakespeare through Raleigh’s point man. Unfortunately, we shall never know (unless we ask the C’s of course!).
Raleigh’s Voyages to South America

Raleigh was also famous as an explorer. Although he never visited North America (at least as far as we are aware), he did explore along the coast of South America, where he visited what is now Guyana and eastern Venezuela in search of Lake Parime and Manoa, the legendary city of gold supposedly at the headwaters of the Caroni River. When he arrived back in England, he published an account of his voyage in which he made exaggerated claims as to what had been discovered. The book can though be seen as a contribution to the El Dorado legend. Turning to North America, even if he never visited it, he did contribute extensively to the early colonisation of the territory by the English, including financing the ill-fated colony of Roanoke

The Lost Colony of Roanoke

Sir Walter Raleigh has, featured before on this thread in a postscript to my article titled ‘The Knights Templar, Jeremiah and the Ark of the Covenant’. I am therefore recapitulating below what I said about Raleigh in that article, save that I have updated the material (which is shown in red) with new information I have become aware of since I originally wrote the article:

According to the Warwickshire historian William Dugdale, who wrote in 1656, the Elizabethan explorer Sir Walter Raleigh visited Herdewyke in 1600 and was told a story about the Templars hiding treasure in the area. For some reason or other, Raleigh took it seriously and spent months looking for treasure. He persuaded his wealthy wife (Elizabeth Throckmorton, Maid of Honour to Queen Elizabeth I) to buy the Herdewyke estate and had a gang of men excavate the ruins of the Templar preceptory. Apparently, nothing was found. Nevertheless, could this legendary treasure have been the same relics that had once been housed in the Herdewyke chapel in Ralph de Sudeley’s time?

************

Of great interest to me though is the colony of Roanoke that Raleigh sought to establish first in 1585, which became known as the "Lost Colony". In 1587, Raleigh attempted a second expedition, again establishing a settlement on Roanoke Island. This time, a more diverse group of settlers was sent, including some entire families, under the governance of
John White. After a short while in America, White returned to England to obtain more supplies for the colony, planning to return in a year. Unfortunately for the colonists at Roanoke, one year became three. When the supply ship arrived in Roanoke, three years later than planned, the colonists had disappeared. The only clue to their fate was the word "CROATOAN" and letters "CRO" carved into tree trunks. White had arranged with the settlers that if they should move, the name of their destination be carved into a tree or corner post. This suggested the possibility that they had moved to Croatoan Island, but a hurricane prevented John White from investigating the island for survivors. Other speculation includes their having starved or been swept away or lost at sea during the stormy weather of 1588. No further attempts at contact were recorded for some years. Whatever the fate of the settlers, the settlement is now remembered as the "Lost Colony of Roanoke Island". Modern research has still not produced the archaeological evidence necessary to solve the mystery*.
*I watched an archaeological programme recently on the Lost Colony of Roanoke and there is now evidence gradually emerging to support the theory that some of the colonists may have moved to Croatan Island at some stage. White had left instructions that, if necessary, the colonists should relocate 50 miles from the “Maine”. Some interpret this as meaning 50 miles inland since “Maine” means “coast”, but he could just as well have meant 50 miles along the coast. It just so happens that Croatan Island is exactly 50 miles from the site of the original colony. Although many of the local Native American tribes were hostile to the colonists, the natives on Croatan Island were friendly and the colonists had established a good relationship with them. An archaeological dig led by Bristol University (of England) and local amateur archaeologists has uncovered on Croatan Island evidence of an Elizabethan era presence, which includes pieces of English Elizabethan period pottery and a sword hilt also contemporary to that period. Although this is not definitive evidence, it is still circumstantial proof that they may have journeyed to Croatan Island (it is highly unlikely that an English gentleman would ever hand over a prized sword to a native unless it was forcibly seized from him). Whether the colonists were abducted from the original site of the colony located by John White or from Croatan Island we do not know. It is worth noting though that ufologists are aware that many Native American tribes have had a long-term relationship with aliens, who they often refer to as their “sky brothers”.

There is also a contemporary map of the region held by the British Museum showing the site of the original colony. There is, however, a subtle patch over part of the map, which covers part of the inland area. Under X-ray analysis, this patch reveals what may be the location of a star-shaped fort. Hence, other archaeologists are working on the theory that the colonists were instructed to move 50 miles inland to build a fort presumably for defence against potential Spanish or French attacks on the colony. I am not aware that they have discovered the location of a fort yet but if any reader is aware, please feel free to inform us.

It is interesting that the expedition's reports had described the region as a pleasant and bountiful land, alluding to the Golden Age (Arcadia) and the Garden of Eden, although these accounts may have been somewhat embellished by Raleigh. The Wikipedia entry for the Lost Colony of Roanoke sets out many theories on what may have happened to the colony see Roanoke Colony - Wikipedia. However, the C's cleared the matter up for Laura when they confirmed that the colony was abducted by aliens. This begs the question why they did so since. Given the state of the world right now, you would think that the aliens would have wanted the colony to succeed. Afterall, the Virginia Company of which Raleigh was a governor, would go on to become the means by which England would eventually come to dominate North America in opposition to its European rivals and lead to the creation of the present United States of America, a centre of power for the Illuminati/NWO and by extension the Quorum. Was it just opportunistic on the part of the aliens who may have simply been hungry at the time and wanted lunch or was there an ulterior motive behind their abduction of the colonists?

However, the C's provided us with another cryptic clue in the session dated 21 February 1998:

A: Laura has had much success in revealing encrypted information... it even raises one's FRV. You need a "recharging, my dear." All this attack has sapped ye!

Q: (L) In what sense, or any specific mode of recharging?

A: You and Ark must get on the right "track."

Q: Are you meaning 'track' as in 'treadmill'?

A: The time for deciphering is not now.
[MJF: The reference to “deciphering” here may be a cryptic clue linking us to Sir Francis Bacon, since he was a cypher or code expert but see also below.]


[.......]

Q: Okay, I will! Anything else? I think we have about covered it for tonight...

A: Leaves on cover...

Q: (A) What about them?

A: Oak.

Q: Yes...


A: Is Beechnut a company?


Q: Interesting thought. Okay. Anything else?
You will note that the C's first make a pun when saying “You need a recharging, my dear. All this attack has sapped ye!" Sap is, of course, something which you extract from a tree like rubber for example and may link to their later clues in that session concerning Oaks and Beechnut. I only learned the other day that early medieval (13th Century) tanners or leather manufacturers had learned to extract sap from the bark of the oak tree to use in the manufacture of hardened leather. It just so happens that on the Curse of Oak Island, one of the Lagina brothers unearthed (literally) last year an old leather shoe sole from a gentleman’s boot that was almost certainly made from this process. Perhaps this is why the C’s said: the time for deciphering is not now”.

Ye” is also old English for “you”, as used in Elizabethan times. Their reference to “Oak” may tie us into Oak Island and Beechnut may link us with Sir Francis Bacon, whose name in old French means 'Beech' as in the tree. However, could there be a tenuous and cryptic link here to Sir Walter Raleigh and the Lost Colony of Roanoke? In the Wikipedia entry (see Roanoke Colony - Wikipedia) there is a reference to a theory that may provide a clue for us.

This is what Wikpedia has to say about the subject:


"Local legends in Dare County refer to an abandoned settlement called "Beechland", located within what is now the Alligator River National Wildlife Refuge. The area has had reports of small coffins, some with Christian markings, encouraging speculation of a link to the Lost Colony. Based on these legends, engineer Phillip McMullan and amateur archaeologist Fred Willard concluded that Walter Raleigh dispatched the 1587 colonists to harvest sassafras along the Alligator River. All records suggesting the colony's intended destination was Chesapeake Bay, and that England had lost contact with the colony, were supposedly falsified to conceal the operation from Spanish operatives and other potential competitors.

According to McMullan, Raleigh quietly re-established contact with the colony by 1597, and his sassafras expeditions were simply picking up the colonists' harvests. In this view, the colony was not truly abandoned until the secret of the colony's location died with Raleigh in 1618. After that point, McMullan argued, the colonists would have begun to assimilate with the Croatan at Beechland.

This theory largely depends upon oral traditions and unsubstantiated reports about Beechland, as well as a 1651 map that depicts a sassafras tree near the Alligator River. A significant problem is that Raleigh supposedly planned a sassafras farm in 1587 to capitalize on a dramatic increase in crop prices, so that he could quickly compensate for the great expense of the failed 1585 colony. This overlooks the fact that Richard Grenville's privateering recovered the cost of the 1585 expedition. Additionally, sassafras prices did not skyrocket in value until the late 1590s, well after the establishment of the 1587 colony."


Well, if the C's are correct about the colony's abduction by aliens, then it is highly unlikely that Raleigh re-established contact with the colony in 1597, as there were seemingly no survivors. As for the Sassafras tree (see Sassafras - Wikipedia), medicinally, sassafras has been applied to insect bites and stings to relieve symptoms. The leaves and pith, when dried and powdered, have also been used as a thickener in soups. The roots often are dried and steeped for tea, and sassafras formerly was used as a flavouring in root beer. All parts of sassafras plants, including roots, stems, twig leaves, bark, flowers, and fruit, have been used for culinary, medicinal, and aromatic purposes. Is it possible that Sir Walter Raleigh had intended to establish a trade in the products of the Sassafras tree? Is 'Beechnut' an indirect reference to 'Beechland' perhaps? Certainly, the Virginia Company of the early 17th century was an English joint stock company set up to exploit the resources of the New World by establishing permanent colonies in what is now the Eastern United States. One cash product that the Virginia Company would subsequently exploit was, of course, tobacco. However, in contrast, Raleigh never set up a company to fund his expeditions, which were paid for directly by Raleigh and his friends. Hence, this may explain the C's question - "Is Beechnut a company?". It may not have been a company, but the “Beechland” colony could still be viewed as a deliberate commercial venture on Raleigh's part.

Beech trees do, of course, produce edible nuts that can be harvested. Beech nuts are tasty, nutrient-dense nuts produced in the fall or autumn by beech trees. If the C's were being cryptic, then there is a brand of chewing tobacco called 'Beech-Nut' produced by the Lorillard Tobacco Company. This may link us back to Sir Walter Raleigh who helped to popularise tobacco smoking and chewing in England, being a smoker himself. For the sake of completeness, there is also the Beech-Nut Nutrition Corporation a US baby food company - see Beech-Nut - Wikipedia.

Was the C’s earlier reference to Oak trees and then to “Beechnut” intended to link Sir Walter Raleigh to Oak Island perhaps or was the link just to Sir Francis Bacon? Recall here that Raleigh showed a great interest in the lost Templar treasure of Temple Herdewyke. Did he become aware perhaps of the Templars’ link to the Grail through his time in Huguenot-held France, whose territory overlapped with that of the by then extinct Cathars? Had he also become aware of a possible Templar link to Oak Island? If so, was he ultimately after the Holy Grail?​

Raleigh’s Execution

In 1617, Raleigh was pardoned by King James and granted permission to conduct a second expedition to Venezuela in search of El Dorado. During the expedition, a detachment of Raleigh's men under the command of his long-time friend Lawrence Kemys attacked the Spanish outpost of Santo Tomé de Guayana on the Orinoco River, in violation of peace treaties with Spain and against Raleigh's orders. A condition of Raleigh's pardon had been the avoidance of any hostility against Spanish colonies or shipping. In the initial attack on the settlement, Raleigh's son, Walter, was fatally shot. Kemys informed Raleigh of his son's death and begged for forgiveness, but did not receive it, and at once committed suicide. On Raleigh's return to England, an outraged Count Gondomar, the Spanish ambassador, demanded that Raleigh's death sentence be reinstated by King James, who had little choice but to do so. Raleigh was brought to London from Plymouth during which he passed up numerous opportunities to make an effective escape. Raleigh was beheaded at the Palace of Westminster on 29 October 1618. Although his popularity had waned considerably since his Elizabethan heyday, his execution was seen by many, at the time and since, as both unnecessary and unjust.​

Conclusion

For those who may think this article is merely a dry narration of Sir Walter Raleigh’s life and times, I would counter by saying that Raleigh and his supporters, as well as his enemies like Sir Francis Bacon, formed part of a very small English, White Anglo-Saxon Protestant (“WASP”) elite, who would ultimately help to forge and shape the destiny of today’s United States of America. The fact that some of these men were also Rosicrucians should be of great significance to us for, given the Rosicrucians’ ancient origins as revealed by the C’s, one has to suspect that the hidden hand of history was operating behind the scenes to ensure the success of their mission in America. Afterall, the C’s have said that the Orions, the Lizard beings and the bio-robotic Greys have been traversing back and forth in time for over 40,000 years to set the present climax up in which the behemoth that is the present United States of America is playing a central role as the main military muscle of the New World Order. Thus, Raleigh may have been more than a victim of circumstances, since the hidden, cloak and dagger forces referred to above may have wanted to ensure Bacon’s more enlightened vision of America as a New Atlantis would prevail at Raleigh’s expense.

In my next article, I hope to expand upon this theme to show how it was ultimately Bacon’s vision that would help to shape the destiny of modern America.
 
The C's have suggested that the Grail or Merkaba has been put to many uses over the millenia. Obviously, one they have told us about was its use in transporting (teleporting?) a group of Kentakkians to Earth prior to the destruction of their planet. It also seems to have been used for the manifestation of things (I will have more to say about this particular function in a subsequent post), including food. Medieval and earlier commentators also seem to have linked it to healing, rejuvenation and even bodily resurrection. If you go back through this thread and to the early transcripts, you will see that these attributes and properties of the Grail seem to be shared with the TDARM the C's say is buried on Oak Island. This is one of the reasons I have posted updates on the treasure hunt currently being undertaken by the Lagina brothers on Oak Island.

Although the Grail would seem to be a standalone object or artefact, it may well be capable of operating with technology or other artefacts. Indeed, if it was viewed as the Head of Osiris by the Egyptians, then it has been shown in some of their wall frescoes and other illustrations atop a pole on the Boat of a Million Years - which the C's say was a time machine. Although it may require an attuned (preferably STO orientated) human to operate it, this does not rule out that it can be used as a lensing or tuning device in conjunction with high-tech machinery, as William Henry, among others, believes. Many ancient alien advocates believe that places like Stonehenge and the Great Pyramid of Giza may once have harboured sophisticated technology and equipment that was long ago removed. I have hinted at this in a previous post about what appeared to be a Sumerian story about an ancient battle of the Anunnaki gods over the Great Pyramid complex, where various precious stones and gems were removed by the victors and either smashed, repurposed or hidden. Perhaps some of these stones were subsequently rediscovered by the likes of Pharaoh Narmer (Solomon) and the much later Thutmose IV, a pharaoh of the 18th Dynasty who was Akhenaten's grandfather, who put them to new uses.

Such rediscoveries may have included the Grail itself. We know Nefertiti stole the Grail from her husband, Akhenaten and gave it to Abraham/Moses. However, the Grail is also described as a "Mother Stone", which may suggest it can be used in conjunction with other stones or crystals as some sort of a mother board, using computer jargon here. Is it just coincidence that the Israelite High Priest (Cohen Hagadol) wore an Ephod or breastplate, which had four rows of mounted stones (the Hoshen Stones):

“And you shall set it with four rows of mounted stones; the first row: a ruby, an emerald, and a topaz. The second row: a carbuncle, a sapphire, and a quartz crystal. The third row: a jacinth, an agate, and an amethyst. The fourth row: a chrysolite, an onyx, and an opal. These stones shall be placed in gold settings. The stones shall contain the names of the twelve children of Israel, one for each of the twelve stones; each one’s name shall be engraved as on a signet ring, to represent the twelve tribes.” (Ex. 28: 17-21)

Were these stones used in conjunction with the Grail as a means of tuning it for communications with the Lizard beings and for other possible functions involving the Grail? Did the author Graham Phillips and his two American friends find some of these breastplate stones during their treasure hunt around the old Templar estate of Temple Herdewyke in the county of Warwickshire in central England, which is only ten miles from what would later be Shakespeare’s birthplace of Stratford-upon-Avon (for more on Shakespeare see my next post on Sir Walter Raleigh). as described in Phillip's book The Templars and the Ark of the Covenant.
S
ee The Ark of the Covenant 1

You asked the question:

Well, I can assure you that if the human STS forces (the real Rosicrucians and not AMORC etc.) find it first, assuming they can, then it will certainly not be placed in a museum for public display. I would suggest they have other purposes lined up for it.

As to Thanos and the Avengers films, they were certainly good entertainment but he did come across as a deranged psychopath and megalomaniac. Who knows, the films could have been the product of a bleed through or the work of Thor's Pantheon. Afterall, Thor, the Norse god of thunder, did have a major role in it. :lol:
have a very good nose for plants and Roses because I work in Gardens a frequency is not only represented as a local point on a map but is the result of all the energy interactions that surround it and sometimes the link is as strong as every rose that carries its thorn.
Do you not suspect that you may be very close to the same Grail in person who has the device? and not because they are converging lineages but because it is hot-hot close to very close.
Neither lukewarm nor cold but close by.
I liked what he said about the shepherds of Arcadia on their knees with that is enough the contact with the Earth the cyclic and natural prostrating as awareness.
By the way Krishna died from the wound of an arrow in his foot was mistaken by a hunter who thought he was a "deer" not a goat but a "deer".
The baptism of the androgynous being of two polar integrated beings as twin souls male and female in a sacred well of water.
I thank you for your time MJF.
 
have a very good nose for plants and Roses because I work in Gardens a frequency is not only represented as a local point on a map but is the result of all the energy interactions that surround it and sometimes the link is as strong as every rose that carries its thorn.
Do you not suspect that you may be very close to the same Grail in person who has the device? and not because they are converging lineages but because it is hot-hot close to very close.
Neither lukewarm nor cold but close by.
I liked what he said about the shepherds of Arcadia on their knees with that is enough the contact with the Earth the cyclic and natural prostrating as awareness.
By the way Krishna died from the wound of an arrow in his foot was mistaken by a hunter who thought he was a "deer" not a goat but a "deer".
The baptism of the androgynous being of two polar integrated beings as twin souls male and female in a sacred well of water.
I thank you for your time MJF.
It is interesting to note that the great Greek demi-god hero and warrior, Achilles, died from an arrow wound to his heel, which was the only spot on his body were he was vulnerable.

Very early on in this thread, Laura suggested one should concentrate on the special bloodline the C's mentioned. I may be wrong but more and more I have come to suspect this bloodline is intimately connected to the Grail. Could it be that the bloodline stems from the group of Kentakkians who escaped the destruction of Kentak by means of the Grail? Could the descendants of this group be the people who entered into the Nordic Covenant perhaps?

In my post on Tuesday, I neglected to make a further connection between the Grail and the TDARM buried on Oak Island. I believe the C's made this connection by referring to both artefacts as "airports":​

Q: Okay! I can accept that! What was Berenger Sauniere collecting all those rocks for?

A: What about conductor?

Q: What do you mean?

A: What conducts?

Q: Was he building a little Stonehenge?

A: Have you researched the power of Stonehenge, and how it relates... where it fits in?

Q: Yes, we are bit by bit collecting things...

A: Well? And crop circles? Amazing connections... And what of "The Rosy Cross?"

Q: Well, this is what we are looking at! I have even discovered that Sir Francis Bacon's name is even derived from "beech," and that his Latin signature has the gematria number of 17 - and January 17 is the feast day of St. Anthony, who replaced St. Augustine in this affair somewhat... and I have connected the Rosicrucians all over the blasted planet, for crying out loud! And, who is who here? Just who are the good guys?

A: Airports are used by both.

Q: Well, what is THAT supposed to mean?

A: Transdimensional Atomic Remolecularizer.


Q: You mean there is a TDARM at the Denver Airport?

A: Not that simple... and much, much deeper meaning. Did you catch the latest report about Neanderthals and DNA and how it relates to you?


You note how the C's are linking TDARMs with airports, which are obviously means of mass transit. I think this point can also be linked with what the C's said recently about the portal in the Ukraine (the Steppes) which the Greys used to bring millions of Kentakkians to Earth thousands of years ago. The reference to Neanderthals and their DNA (which is carried by most western Europeans) could link with the breed period of interbreeding before the Neanderthals were themselves transported off the Earth to save them as a species before they were completely destroyed by Homo Sapiens, our ancestors.

The Grail was, of course, used like a TDARM to transport that group of Kentakkians to Earth, perhaps making use of a natural portal. Indeed, the Grail may today be hidden within a portal or a frequency fence beyond the reach of those who are not of the right vibratory frequency to access it.

It is interesting that the C's refer in the above passage variously to: Stonehenge, Abbe Berenger Sauniere (and by extension Rennes-le-Chateau), crop circles, "the Rosy Cross" (and therefore by extension the Rosicrucians), Airports, TDARMs and Neanderthals. Quite an eclectic mix. This thread has, at one time or another, looked at all of these things bar Neanderthals (it even briefly touched upon the enigma of Denver Airport and its strange murals). However, there does appear to be a strong link between the Rosicrucians, Sir Francis Bacon and the TDARM on Oak Island, which this thread has tried to develop. Indeed, I hope soon to add another post developing this point further. But we should also keep in mind the use of natural earth based portals, which may provide a surprising link to Abbe Berenger Sauniere and his interest in rocks.

 
It is interesting to note that the great Greek demi-god hero and warrior, Achilles, died from an arrow wound to his heel, which was the only spot on his body were he was vulnerable.

Very early on in this thread, Laura suggested one should concentrate on the special bloodline the C's mentioned. I may be wrong but more and more I have come to suspect this bloodline is intimately connected to the Grail. Could it be that the bloodline stems from the group of Kentakkians who escaped the destruction of Kentak by means of the Grail? Could the descendants of this group be the people who entered into the Nordic Covenant perhaps?

In my post on Tuesday, I neglected to make a further connection between the Grail and the TDARM buried on Oak Island. I believe the C's made this connection by referring to both artefacts as "airports":​

Q: Okay! I can accept that! What was Berenger Sauniere collecting all those rocks for?

A: What about conductor?

Q: What do you mean?

A: What conducts?

Q: Was he building a little Stonehenge?

A: Have you researched the power of Stonehenge, and how it relates... where it fits in?

Q: Yes, we are bit by bit collecting things...

A: Well? And crop circles? Amazing connections... And what of "The Rosy Cross?"

Q: Well, this is what we are looking at! I have even discovered that Sir Francis Bacon's name is even derived from "beech," and that his Latin signature has the gematria number of 17 - and January 17 is the feast day of St. Anthony, who replaced St. Augustine in this affair somewhat... and I have connected the Rosicrucians all over the blasted planet, for crying out loud! And, who is who here? Just who are the good guys?

A: Airports are used by both.

Q: Well, what is THAT supposed to mean?

A: Transdimensional Atomic Remolecularizer.


Q: You mean there is a TDARM at the Denver Airport?

A: Not that simple... and much, much deeper meaning. Did you catch the latest report about Neanderthals and DNA and how it relates to you?


You note how the C's are linking TDARMs with airports, which are obviously means of mass transit. I think this point can also be linked with what the C's said recently about the portal in the Ukraine (the Steppes) which the Greys used to bring millions of Kentakkians to Earth thousands of years ago. The reference to Neanderthals and their DNA (which is carried by most western Europeans) could link with the breed period of interbreeding before the Neanderthals were themselves transported off the Earth to save them as a species before they were completely destroyed by Homo Sapiens, our ancestors.

The Grail was, of course, used like a TDARM to transport that group of Kentakkians to Earth, perhaps making use of a natural portal. Indeed, the Grail may today be hidden within a portal or a frequency fence beyond the reach of those who are not of the right vibratory frequency to access it.

It is interesting that the C's refer in the above passage variously to: Stonehenge, Abbe Berenger Sauniere (and by extension Rennes-le-Chateau), crop circles, "the Rosy Cross" (and therefore by extension the Rosicrucians), Airports, TDARMs and Neanderthals. Quite an eclectic mix. This thread has, at one time or another, looked at all of these things bar Neanderthals (it even briefly touched upon the enigma of Denver Airport and its strange murals). However, there does appear to be a strong link between the Rosicrucians, Sir Francis Bacon and the TDARM on Oak Island, which this thread has tried to develop. Indeed, I hope soon to add another post developing this point further. But we should also keep in mind the use of natural earth based portals, which may provide a surprising link to Abbe Berenger Sauniere and his interest in rocks.

You are not an ordinary person MJF it would be imprudent to enter the jungle without the necessary tools you know that it is not enough to use reason or have great intelligence because with that you only get to minor and partial mysteries for what is required a broader spiritual sense to venture into the unknown, a divine protection and the daring to go for that which is extraordinary and unattainable.
In the cutie you learn the cutie
And in the angelic, the heavenly is learned, both worlds must be united reconciling that they go hand in hand anyway.
 
A: Airports are used by both.

Q: Well, what is THAT supposed to mean?

A: Transdimensional Atomic Remolecularizer.


Q: You mean there is a TDARM at the Denver Airport?

A: Not that simple... and much, much deeper meaning. Did you catch the latest report about Neanderthals and DNA and how it relates to you?


You note how the C's are linking TDARMs with airports, which are obviously means of mass transit. I think this point can also be linked with what the C's said recently about the portal in the Ukraine (the Steppes) which the Greys used to bring millions of Kentakkians to Earth thousands of years ago.​

Regarding airports. A quick search asking what is the ideal place to build an airport apart from dimensions, runway etc. It indicates that one of the main elements to take into account is the prevailing wind direction:

Meteorological conditions, such as wind or visibility. The main runway should be oriented in the direction of the prevailing wind, always trying to avoid crosswinds (see figure below).an aircraft needs, according to its weight characteristics, aerodynamics and the thrust of its engines, a certain air speed across the lifting surfaces in order to climb. This implies that the speed of the aircraft with respect to the ground is different depending on whether the wind is blowing in one direction or the other. When we take off or land with the wind against us, the headwind component offered by the wind is added to that of the air with respect to the surfaces of the aircraft, so that for the same takeoff or landing speed, the speed with respect to the ground will be less (an amount equal to that of the headwind component), so that a shorter runway length will be needed to take off or land.

This effect would be the opposite if we take off or land downwind or downwind, increasing the distance needed to land/take off.

From there you jump to meteorology with respect to those prevailing winds.

In meteorology, prevailing winds are winds that blow predominantly from a single general direction over a particular point on the Earth's surface. Prevailing winds are the trends in wind direction with the highest velocity over a particular point on the Earth's surface. The prevailing and prevailing winds of a region are often affected by global patterns of motion in the Earth's atmosphere. In general, an easterly current exists at high and low latitudes globally. At mid-latitudes, westerly winds are the norm and their strength depends on the polar cyclone. In areas where winds tend to be light, the sea/land breeze cycle is most important for the prevailing wind; in areas where they have variable terrain, mountain and valley breezes dominate the wind pattern. Very high surfaces can induce a thermal depression, which then increases the environmental wind flow.

Wind roses are the tools used to determine the prevailing wind direction. Knowledge of the prevailing wind allows the development of prevention strategies for soil erosion on agricultural lands, such as in the Great Plains.* Sand dunes can be oriented along, or perpendicular to, the prevailing wind regime within coastal or desert locations. Insects move along with the prevailing wind, while birds are able to fly more independently of the prevailing wind. Prevailing winds in mountainous locations can lead to significant rainfall gradients within the topography, ranging from wet in windward areas to desert conditions on leeward slopes.

*And here we can add the great plains of Ukraine:

Landscapes of Ukraine

During a trip in Ukraine, you will mainly see a scenery of plateaus and steppes that will follow one another without contrasts, only interspersed here and there by some forests. In general, the terrain of Ukraine is flat, which has earned it the nickname of a country of plains.

I have a suspicion that airports are built not just for the winds for ease of aircraft, takeoff and landing. It is the WEATHER that is important and a constant pattern that allows easy transition between densities.

An example of this, I can tell from my own experiences traveling. Ezeiza International Airport in Argentina, almost no matter the season of the year, will always be a few degrees colder than the rest of the surrounding areas. And it turns out that this airport located in the province of Buenos Aires, this province and continuing towards the pampas is a plain and a plain similar to that of Ukraine.
 
...William Shakespeare came in...
... (MJF: many of these men were closet bisexuals, ...)
just a few thoughts that come to my mind:

How common is the name William ... Shakespeare?
Let's say compared to James ... Ditherdick?

Remember this?
1655304421631.png

Also there is this Grimm's Fairy Tale:
Rumpelstilzchen.jpg
heute back ich, morgen brau ich,
übermorgen hol ich der Königin ihr Kind;
ach, wie gut ist daß niemand weiß
daß ich Rumpelstilzchen heiß!


["today I bake, tomorrow I brew,
the day after tomorrow I'll fetch the queen her child;
oh, how good it is that no one knows
that my name is Rumpelstiltskin!]

"rumpeln" = "to rumple, to bump, to trundle, to lumber"
"der Stiel" = "stem"

-> Rumpelstiltskin - Wikipedia
 
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